1. What is Special Education ?

2. What is Early Intervention (EI) ?

3. Choosing specialist services for your child

4. Administration of Intelligence (IQ) tests in Singapore 

1. What is Special Education?

"Children with disabilities" are defined as having any of the following types of disabilities: autism, deaf, deaf-blindness, hearing impairments (including deafness), mental retardation, multiple disabilities, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, serious emotional disturbance, specific learning disabilities, speech or language impairments, traumatic brain injury, and visual impairments (including blindness).

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2. What is Early Intervention (EI)?

The following excerpt, the source of which is still under verification as I have been unable to locate the relevant research papers yet. But I do have another link, Research Bites on Head Start, about the benefits of EI :

Children who had attended Head Start, an EI programme for children with intellectual disabilities or from disadvantaged groups, typically scored 15 points better on IQ tests than their peers who had not had the benefits of Head Start. However, a couple of years later the differences on IQ tests showed no significant difference between the two groups. This was disappointing to supporters of Head Start. However, the supporters continued to follow the group and found that although the IQ scores still showed no significant differences, the students who had been through Head Start tended to finish High School and had higher Social skills than those who had not attended Head Start. As such, those who had attended Headstart had a much greater chance of succeeding in life than those that hadn't.

Long-Term Outcome for Children With Autism Who Received Early Intensive Behavioral Treatment

 

Young adult academic outcomes in a longitudinal sample of early identified language impaired and control children

 

Home Environment Affects Cognition of Children With Fragile X Syndrome

1. Young adult academic outcomes in a longitudinal sample of early identified language impaired and control children 

Authors : Young A.R. ; Beitchman J.H. ; Johnson C. ; Douglas L. ; Atkinson L.; Escobar M. ; Wilson B.
Source  : Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, July 2002, vol. 43, no. 5, pp. 635-645(1)

Abstract:

Background: The long-term academic consequences of childhood language impairment are both theoretically and clinically important. An unbiased appraisal of these outcomes, however, requires carefully designed, longitudinal research.

Method: A group of children first identified as having speech and/or language impairment in a community-based, longitudinal study at 5 years of age and matched controls were re-examined during young adulthood (age 19). A comprehensive battery of speech and language, cognitive and achievement tests, psychiatric interviews, and questionnaires were completed by subjects, their parents and teachers.

Results: While children with early speech problems showed only a few academic differences from controls in young adulthood, early language impaired (LI) young adults lagged significantly behind controls in all areas of academic achievement, even after controlling for intelligence. Further, rates of learning disabilities (LD) were significantly higher in the LI group than both the controls and community base rates. Concurrent individual difference variables, including phonological awareness, naming speed for digits, non-verbal IQ, verbal working memory, and executive function, all contributed unique variance to achievement in specific areas.

Conclusion: Early LI rather than speech impairment is clearly associated with continued academic difficulties into adulthood. These results speak to the need for intensive, early intervention for LI youngsters.

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To better understand factors that influence variations in the cognitive phenotype of fragile X syndrome, Dr. Jennifer Dyer-Friedman of Stanford University, California, and colleagues evaluated 120 families that had one child with the inherited developmental disability and another sibling without the disease. The researchers conducted 8-hour, in-home visits to assess the IQ of the parents and children and to evaluate the home environment. 

In fragile X syndrome, mutations in a gene on the long arm of the X chromosome cause diminished production of the FMR1 protein, the authors note. In this cohort, the percentage of lymphocytes expressing FMR1 protein averaged 12.09% for affected boys and 51.03% for affected girls. 

"One pretty big surprise was that the FMR protein was not more predictive of the outcome of the affected kids," Dr. Dyer-Friedman told Reuters Health. She noted that previous studies have shown similar levels of the protein, but with more of a relationship to outcome. She attributes the difference to sampling. "This was a bigger sample than any of the other studies [that examined this] and so ours is probably more accurate." 

Parental IQ was the strongest predictor of cognitive outcome in unaffected children, Dr. Dyer-Friedman noted. However, "the predictive value of parental IQ was somewhat less strong for affected girls and significantly less strong for boys affected with fragile X," she said. "It means that the mutation is mitigating the impact of parental IQ." 

She continued, "the enrichment and structure of the home had much more of a predictive value for the fragile X kids than for the unaffected kids. Unaffected kids' intelligence is strongly determined by their genetic material. For those with fragile X, the home environment had a significant impact on overall cognitive aptitude as well as their freedom from distractibility." 

This implies, she said, that "the more that a family can encourage learning, enrich the household, and structure the household so that distractions are minimized and routines are maximized, the better these children will be at developing attentional skills." 

The research team has obtained funding to conduct a longitudinal study of these same families, the Stanford researcher said. "We hope this lays the groundwork for more studies on the effectiveness of home-based, school-based, and therapist-provided interventions," she added, "because we believe interventions are very important. We just don't know yet what works for whom." 

 

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