Keyana Radcliffe Rough DRAFT

Keyana M Radcliffe
Professor Ewa Barnes
ACR 150
April 28,2022

Option 1 : ethnography of community

for my ethnography, I chose to write about children with developmental disabilities. Because I feel as though they are often overlooked and are always pushed aside. They don’t have the same educational options atypical children and adults would have because they require more support. By the end of this I hope people are able to become more aware of our children with developmental disabilities.

Ethnography of a Community: Children with Developmental Disabilities

As a teacher assistant for children with developmental disabilities, I come across unique individuals everyday who are extremely bright and often overlooked in the education department. Because they don’t have much of a voice for themselves, it is up to their parents and the adults to advocate for them. But in most cases, even the adults lack the resources and information required to meet their child’s needs. The real question is how can we work together in order to make sure children with developmental disabilities are receiving the education they deserve?

There are many different barriers that prevent the youth in succeeding in literacy. The barriers vary from lack of resources, not enough people trained in the field, being discriminated because of the disability, etc. Many schools turn away the children because they lack the services needs like transportation, coordinating between childcare services and early intervention, and the lack of trained professionals. Parents were being turned away from centers and have difficulty finding facilities that will accept their children. Even parents receiving paid child care for their children with social, emotional, behavioral disabilities were being denied because of their child’s behavior.

In Adapt Community Network preschool, they specifically cater to children with developmental disabilities. The classes range between eight to ten children, so that the children can receive more individual attention. There are always two teacher assistants, one teacher, and paraprofessionals for whichever child requires it. When teaching, they do everything based off a schedule to incorporate routines. Some children with developmental disabilities become agitated when you try to redirect them to do something they aren’t used to or comfortable with. It is important that everything is done in a repetitive motion. The children have different disabilities some physical and some developmental so the teachers and the staff are very aware of how to deal with them. The staff is very welcoming and loving towards the children, which you can tell by the way the children interact with them.

Majority of the children learn through sing and play, and love sensory. Bright colors, songs, and things with texture grabs their attention and gets them engaged. They love being able to participate, and help the teachers flip the pages during read aloud. Everything is visual so that the children have an example of what they’re doing. With their pictures on their name icons, the children are able to identify themselves and their classmates. They interact with each other through play, and are very loving towards each other. They are in an environment where they are accepted and treated equally.

Although Adapt is a very wonderful environment, it is short staffed like other schools that cater to children with developmental disabilities. Some children who require 1:1 paras, lack one which makes the teacher take on more roles and makes facilitating a little difficult. Even though everyone is well trained they aren’t all trained in the same department. There is a lack of individual services like therapy’s physical, occupational, speech, and counseling. And some students require more than one therapy. But because there aren’t enough therapist, the students aren’t able to work on the things they need to improve. Also the communication between services are often delayed, so if therapists don’t receive their IEP on they can’t begin work with the children.

Aside from in school, learning in home also needs to be implemented in order to contribute to the children success. But sometimes the parents aren’t properly trained on how to work with their child. And if the parent has more than one child that can also make things a little bit difficult. Depending on the severity of the child’s situation, some parents can get overwhelmed. A parent of a former student of mine, expressed that being a single mom of two children under the age of six, she struggles to find the proper tools to meet the needs on caring for her child. Another parent who was born deaf often feels that she finds it difficult to communicate with her child who isn’t deaf but she’s mute. She fears that her child isn’t properly grasping onto the sign language.

The best way to meet the needs of the children is to first provide teachers with the tools in areas they lack. We need to encourage more people to get into the field of working with children with disabilities. Provide parents with the same tools teachers are receiving so they too can also feel as though they are making a change. Sometimes people feel hopeless when in reality they just need that push to keep going. There needs to be more services open to schools so that they can accept children with developmental disabilities.
The same village it takes to raise a child, is also needed for our children with disabilities. Let’s stop overlooking those who are really in need and start acting. If there aren’t enough voices advocating for a change, it will never occur.