A recent survey explores positive aspects and difficulties related to distance teaching in case of specific learning disorders. How to guarantee the right to study of students and students with DSA also through this didactic method?
The Italian Dyslexia Association has recently published the report of a small investigation carried out on 35 students with specific learning disorders (20 girls and 15 boys), residing in the provinces of Biella and Vercelli, aged between 14 and 18, with the aim of evaluating theemotional impact of distance teaching. The students and students involved was administered a questionnaire which, alongside the most practical aspects, also focused on the detection of emotional states during the experience of teaching at a distance.
Of course, the limits of an investigation into small numbers and relating to a small sample by geographical origin and school order involved are evident, therefore each improper generalization must be avoided and you must take into account the possibility of even substantial corrections, but The data are the starting point for some interesting reflections.
The picture of the experience with distance teaching that emerges from the investigation highlights, as imaginable, some positive aspects and some critical issues.
The positive aspects
Among the positive aspects of distance teaching, the interviewees mentioned the less embarrassment in the use of some of the compensatory and dispensing measures provided for by the personalized educational plan To overcome the characteristics of the specific learning disorder. The consultation of conceptual schemes and maps or the planned technological aids was more natural, because in the dimension of distance teaching you have less the impression of being kept “under control” by teachers or from the rest of the class group.
Unfortunately a consideration of this type, although it may seem, at a superficial look, a positive aspect, actually points the finger on the sense of discomfort that still accompanies the school experience of students with DSA today. The fact that during the lessons in the presence a student feels embarrassed in adapting the measures provided for by his personalized didactic plan in order to overcome an objective difficulty and enjoy his right to study represents one serious defeat for the school, to which it is necessary to remedy.
70% of the sample also said that the experience of distance teaching has proven to be a good exercise to enhance a more strategic and effective use of technological toolsin order to overcome the difficulties connected with the DSA.
The emotional experience
The most problematic aspect highlighted by the investigation concerns the emotional experience: 90% of the students and students reported facing school activity with an attitude that is not of serenity or calm, in relation to both daily experience and at the outcome of the school year. In particular, 80% report to prove concern for the situation and 20% even anxiety. Among the most problematic aspects there is the sense of insulation connected with the decrease in the social dimension of school life. 34 students reported having lived a greater number of situations of isolation and loneliness, but 40% detect that they have had the support of companions even at a distance. The aspect judged more difficult to bear was the lack of the relationship in presence With the teachers and classmates and the most scarce feedback that can be received during the lessons at a distance.
The search for new roads
In the final reflections of the group that coordinated the research, theimportance of finding new paths To help students with special educational needs to serene teaching teaching in a serene way, focusing, especially, on the attention to the student’s emotions, that teachers must be able to manage correctly, helping students and students to elaborate isolation stress. It is also essential to encourage the adoption of Alternative forms of communication between studentsto make up for at least in part to the interaction in presence.
«The results of the research reported – he told us Daniela Traverprofessor of development and education psychology at the Catholic University of Milan and experts in specific learning disorders – they perfectly align with the observations that emerged from other research, including those in which I personally participated. Psychology and neuroscience also highlights for some time as The emotional experience of students is able to substantially influence the results of learning. If, on the one hand, a level of moderate anxiety can also contribute to stimulating concentration, on the other its excess, very common in the case of this difficult situation, can be paralyzing and preventing from dealing with complex tasks, which require the ability to rework, to relate concepts, to make inferences. The effort requested by a verification, for example, in these circumstances, can be a source of great stress for a student or student with a DSA ».
DAD management problems
We keep in mind that the numbers, partly reassuring, of the survey will also be influenced by the age of the sample examined: in fact, they are girls and boys in the age of high school age, therefore rather autonomous in the management of the study. Distance lessons management problems are certainly more concrete for the little oneswhich would need support not always available and this unacceptable in an unacceptable way the right to study of many girls and boys during the pandemic emergency.
Traver underlines: «From the talks carried out with some parents, for example, the feeling that some teachers, probably overwhelmed by the difficult management of the many activities connected with teaching at a distance, have struggled to take into account students with special educational needs, which they are involved less, as if they remained in the background. This represents a remarkable step back towards school inclusion. The pandemic emergency certainly represents a remarkable challenge for everyone, but we must not allow it to be transformed into a limitation of the right to study for some students.
The main problems mainly concern younger children: The subjects who present some difficulties in the first years of study and do not recover them promptly could see their problems grow learning over time. It is, in fact, I notice that recovery interventions, for example on basic skills such as reading, writing and calculation, are more effective when they are implemented within the second-terzo year of primary school “.
The importance of training
In long times and beyond the contingent emergency situation, it appears increasingly clear The very important role of the training of teachers relating to inclusive teaching. The negative experiences reported by students and students with specific learning disorders are often linked to prejudices, limited or approximate knowledge or, again, to false hard myths to die relating to the DSA and the didactic compensation strategies. In this sense, starting from a training project that does not solve theoretical lessons in scarne, but descends more specifically for the teaching of each discipline, suggesting strategies of immediate application and based on scientific evidence, represents the best way not to leave anyone behind the full respect of the right to education.
«For example, I personally had the opportunity to experiment with some promising remote recovery strategies, which give good results, but which are unfortunately not known to all teachers. Distance teaching It should not be lived as a mere transfer of the same teaching methods in a digital formbut as an opportunity to experiment with new strategies, which, for example, also allow to socialize and work collaboratively through electronic tools. In general, In all projects it is important to think of an active involvement of parentswhich must therefore be put by the company in the position of being able to support their children in their path, with the appropriate precautions concerning the management of their work and the availability of IT means “, concludes Traverante.
