Learning made easy

Updated on: Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Have you noticed your best friend unknowingly writing mirror images of numbers? Ever wondered why he struggles to keep up in the Math period, or why he has trouble with spelling? Wondered what you can do to help him? If your answer is ‘yes' to all these, you might want to take a look at the set of video CDs recently brought out by the State Institute of Educational Technology (SIET), Kerala.

Situation of students

Differently-abled children — those with learning disabilities (LD), auditory or visual — are often thought of by parents, teachers and even peers as mentally retarded. Even though there is a growing awareness among a section of society that such children actually need to be mainstreamed and all they need is a bit extra care and attention, children with LD find it extremely difficult to get admission in schools.

Even when they do get admission, you might have noticed teachers and classmates running down these otherwise gifted children. The SIET's CDs, in Malayalam, help a parent, teacher or friend know, love, accept and respect differently-abled children. In fact, the CDs have been produced in such a manner that a dyslexic child himself can get a correct picture of his/her problem and learn that learning disability is nothing to be ashamed of.

Learning CDs

If in one CD doctors list the tell-tale signs of LD, another one is all about the attitude of society towards these children. There are CDs that demonstrate techniques of teaching arithmetic to the visually challenged and writing, to the hearing impaired. One CD is all about contemporary education of the visually challenged and about the Braille system.

There is even a CD on ‘Music Education for the Visually Impaired and Libraries for the Visually Impaired'.

Also included in the 14-CD set are English-English and English-Malayalam audio dictionaries. These contain more than 4,000 commonly used words and are specially for the visually challenged.

The SIET's initiative comes at a time when the union MHRD Ministry is working to bring out a separate curriculum for differently-abled children. This will enable these children to attend regular school and yet receive specialised care for their disability.

Now, you will think twice before calling your best friend a ‘dumbo', won't you?

Learning made easy

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