Introduction
Children are widely recognized as the future of any society or a nation. Practically, the new generations of any state and the level of their wellbeing determine the tendencies a country will be going through within the next few decades.
That way, taking good care of the children and developing the programs and interventions to address the needs of young children and infants are a crucial part of upstream approach to various problems of the society such as public health issues, education, financial wellbeing, criminal activity, to name a few. Healthy young children have a variety of needs, but not all babies are born healthy.
Children and infants with health conditions and disabilities require special attention and specialized educational programs to be able to function productively and without problems in the society as adults.
This paper explores the definition of young children at risk, their recognition in the society, background of the social attitude to the individuals with special needs, legislative practices when it comes to the fulfillment of these needs, the aspects and development of the curriculums and materials for the education of young children at risk.
It can hardly be doubted that children constitute the future of every people. Children are young persons who need to be brought up properly in order to become full-fledged individuals that could be both successful from the personal point of view and helpful for the society they live in.
But it should be noted that there are different factors which influence the process of a child’s upbringing. These factors might come both from the child (for instance, health issues caused by genetic reasons) or from the environment (poor ecological condition). When these factors begin to have a strong adverse influence on a child’s development, it is said that the child is at risk.
In this paper, we will address the issues of curriculum and interventions applied to children at risk; in particular, the focus of our study will be the population of Saudi Arabia. After discussing the meaning of the “at risk” term in more detail, we will consider the importance of this problem and the significance of its research specifically in Saudi Arabia.
After that, we will provide a review of scholarly literature (four scholarly articles and two doctoral dissertations) studying the issues of the children at risk, and offer a number of conclusions which may be drawn from this literature to improve the life, educational, social, and other outcomes for children who belong to different groups at risk.
“At Risk” Definition
“At risk” is the term that is frequently employed to identify special categories of children and young people, and also carries quite a strong emotional and intuitive connotation (Moore 1). At the same time, there is no specific meaning of this term even though it is used widely in the contemporary society. The vagueness of this definition can be seen both as a positive and negative characteristic.
On one hand, this term is quite general, which may lead to stereotyping and stigmatizing of particular types of individuals. On the other hand, the broad meaning of “at risk” term allows the professionals who use it develop their own definitions suitable for the specializations of their organizations and facilities and the people they target.
When it is children who are spoken about from the “at risk” perspective, one may note that any child regardless of their health or financial status is exposed to a number of risks. However, instead of including a particular definition of risk, this term refers to “poor life outcomes in general” (Moore 1).
Children may be called at risk if they dwell in poor ecological conditions, are exposed to such threats as future incarceration or unemployment, school failure, injuries or death. Children with special needs and learning disabilities are recognized to be at risk due to their limited opportunities to fit into the society and function productively in the future without special education. That is why a number of organizations are involved in the development of specialized programs for the children and infants at risk targeting their needs and conditions.
Statement of Need
As it was mentioned, some children belong to the so-called “at-risk” groups. It is hard to define this term precisely; the explanations of it are often rather vague, but that is due to the fact that it describes people who are more likely to have “poor life outcomes in general” (Moore, 2006), which is, clearly, a large group of people.
Therefore, the term “children at risk” is a general one, and includes kids who, for example, live in adverse ecological conditions, suffer from additional disadvantages in their academic or social lives, may fail while looking for employment, etc.
It is also clear that children with various health issues, especially the ones who suffer from severe impairments, virtually always face numerous additional complications in their lives that usually cannot be overcome using the methods and resources that ordinary, non-impaired children (and their parents and teachers) commonly have at their disposal. Hence, the need for e.g. special education and additional interventions follows.
It is practically always true that the interventions that need to be carried out in order to help the children at risk are most useful when they are made as early as possible. For instance, for children with auditory impairments, it is crucial to identify the problem at an early age, because staying ignorant of it would mean that the child is deprived of a vast amount of experience that other kids of this age obtain, and, as no compensation for this lack is provided, they are likely to develop much worse than non-impaired children.
Identifying the problem, however, allows for offering interventions that make the consequences of the impairment less significant, as well as for implementing special studying curriculums that take into account the needs of these children.
However, it should not be forgotten that all children at risk, even the non-impaired ones, require additional help and attention. For example, kids who suffer from child abuse need the help of the society, because the situation that they constantly find themselves in causes suffering, and is also likely to harm their social and personal development and adversely affect not only their future lives but also the lives of those who surround them.
It is also important to research the issues concerning the children at risk on-site. Clearly, there might exist various distinctions between different regions, and children in Saudi Arabia are likely to suffer from different concrete problems than those in the United States, for instance.
These distinctions might be caused by cultural, technological, and other differences. Of course, any research of the problem might be useful to a certain degree. Some of the studies will be helpful anywhere – for instance, the ones that include early interventions related to medical conditions (e.g., hearing and vision impairments).
Others might be connected only to concrete social issues and be of use in particular settings only (for instance, there might exist different views on child abuse in different cultures, so in the cultures where child mistreatment is perceived as more acceptable it is especially important to carry out interventions and provide additional help to the abused kids).
Taking what has been said above into account, it is clear that studying the phenomena related to the children at risk specifically in Saudi Arabia is essential if improvements in this sphere are to be carried out successfully in the named country.
Review of Related Literature
This section provides a review of literature on dealing with children at risk. It should be pointed out that, while one might find plenty of studies concerned with these issues that were carried out in some countries (for instance, in the USA), it is rather hard to find literature which researched this problem specifically in Saudi Arabia.
Also, many of these studies examined very specific population, and the results might be different in other regions of the country. Due to the lack of research literature, we chose a number of studies dealing with particular issues related to some specific groups of children at risk, and one general article concerned with the history of special education in Saudi Arabia and possible legal recommendations to improve it.
The other articles were concerned with children suffering from different impairments (auditory or visual); with inclusive schools for such children; and with the parents of children at risk, and how to work with these parents or introduce other interventions.
The article by Aldabas (2015) provides a brief description of the history of special education in Saudi Arabia, and offers some recommendations that should improve it today. Special education appeared in Saudi Arabia in 1958, and has been developing ever since.
It has been able to significantly improve the life of children with disabilities (who are, as it is known, are among the children at risk) by providing them with opportunities to learn. The first special education program in Saudi Arabia was private, when a blind man, supported by a private organization, created a program to help blind adults to learn.
The first governmental program was opened two years later, in 1960, and provided training for blind males of various age, including boys. The sphere was gradually developing, and nowadays there exist not only special education institutions but also general education schools that provide inclusive education for kids with mild or moderate learning disabilities.
The author offers some recommendations concerning the upbringing of children with impairments. For instance, it is important to educate them in less restrictive environments, and to take into account their individual needs while creating a curriculum for them in inclusive schools. This requires the adoption of laws that would allow for such curriculums.
These laws also need to include the requirement to involve parents in children’s education, as well as to establish the provision of services such as early identification of impairments and early intervention. The creation of programs that would prepare teachers for impaired students is also essential.
Some children at risk (for example, children with various impairments) may experience additional difficulties while interacting with their peers and engaging in social relationships. This issue is important due to the fact that nowadays children from Saudi Arabia and other countries often study in inclusive schools. Xie (2013) carried out a research of literature concerned with the issue of how children with hearing impairments communicate with their peers.
The researcher was able to find out that the impaired children engaged in interactions, but this communication was usually more successful if both participants had an auditory deficit, whereas the communication with children who had typical hearing failed more often.
Xie (2013) proposes to introduce some programs that might make the communication easier into the children’s curriculum. Such programs include ones that improve language and speech ability, peer-mediated model programs, co-enrollment programs, and social skills training programs.
The scholar notes that it is required to carry out additional studies in order to identify the exact results of these programs. It is clear, however, that these programs might provide significant help to the impaired children, to the ones in Saudi Arabia in particular, and that it might be useful to implement such programs in inclusive schools of this country.
A dissertation by Al-Hoshan (2009) is a study of the results that special education yields for children with hearing and visual impairments in Saudi Arabia. The scholar researched the post-school outcomes of 279 learners from Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) who had hearing or visual loss and finished schools in 2002-2006. It was found out that children who studied in inclusive schools more often took part in various group activities after they finished their schools.
They also communicated with friends more often and had higher chances of having an employment history. The study also discovered that having a transition plan (which means that the students discussed the variants of their further educational or career path with a teacher or an adult person at school) before leaving schools led to the similar results (higher participation in group activities, more frequent communication with friends, better chances of having an employment history).
Having a transition plan was also associated with higher odds of being engaged in post-secondary education programs. Therefore, it was shown that there exists an association between inclusive education and the presence of transition plans on the one hand, and positive outcomes after leaving schools on the other.
It is clear, therefore, that it would be useful to create more institutions in Saudi Arabia that would provide inclusive education for children with impairments. It is also important to introduce transition planning as an integral part of education for such children.
As it was mentioned, there exist inclusive schools for children with various disabilities and other children at risk in Saudi Arabia. Alrubaian (2014) in his dissertation investigated the knowledge, attitudes, and strategies of general education teachers from such schools towards children with learning disabilities in Saudi Arabia. 278 teachers took part in the study; the research was carried out on male teachers from elementary schools (grades 1-6).
Among other findings, the researcher was able to discover that five main factors contributed to the quality of education for children with learning disabilities; these factors were “teacher preparation, academic climate, teaching approaches, teaching strategies, and teacher effectiveness” (Alrubaian, 2014, p. 105). General experience of teaching and the experience of participation in special education programs were associated with better teaching methods.
Also, the presence of a resource room was related to better educational outcomes for children. The size of groups also was found to be a factor for the quality of education provided. It also should be noted that teachers indicated that various kinds of assistance, such as the presence of a special education teacher in their school, the public understanding of the issue of learning disabilities, the collaboration of children’s parents with teachers, better salaries, additional information on working with children with learning disabilities, etc., helped them to provide better education to these children.
Therefore, it is clear that in order to improve the quality of inclusive education for Saudi Arabian children with learning disabilities it is important to provide the teachers from such schools with different kinds of supporting materials and resources.
Parents play an important role in children’s life, and their attitudes and beliefs often have a significant influence on a child’s development. Alqahtani (2012) investigated the beliefs of 85 parents about the causes of autism in their children.
The parents were chosen from King Fahad medical city. There were a number of specific criteria; parents had to be Saudis; their children had to achieve the diagnosis of autism when they were one-year-old or more, and have no other significant disorders; the diagnosis had to be made by King Fahad medical city autism team.
The scholar was able to find out that a large number of parents believed that the condition of their children was a result of factors which exist according to their cultural beliefs. Mostly parents were convinced that more than one cause was involved.
For instance, some parents thought that autism emerged from their being “cold” and not giving enough “emotional warmth” to their children. Many parents were sure that their child’s diagnosis was a result of “evil eye”; a little fewer parents reported dark magic as the cause of the disorder. Others were convinced that autism developed due to measles-mumps-rubella vaccination.
Interestingly, none of the parents knew that genetic factors might contribute to their children’s diagnosis. Even though parents often practiced dietary and medical interventions, none of the important types of therapy that involve behavioral, developmental or educational interventions were used.
These findings indicate that it is essential to introduce educational programs for parents of autistic infants when planning early interventions in Saudi Arabia, because the lack of knowledge about medical causes and treatment of autism is likely to significantly worsen the quality of care for these children.
It is important to point out that children suffering from abuse in their families also constitute a major at-risk group. In such cases, interventions of external institutions may be needed to protect these children. Habib (2012) researched the level of professional knowledge and experience of Saudi Arabian pediatricians concerned with the issue of child abuse. 198 visitors of a pediatric conference were questioned to obtain the results.
The participants came from various pediatric institutions located in different parts of the country. As a result of the study, it was found out that most participants (82-91%) had knowledge about some important issues regarding child abuse and negligence, which is stated to be an adequate percentage. On the other hand, much fewer participants (only approximately 66% to 79%) knew how to report these cases.
Knowledge about the concepts of child abuse or negligence, about underreporting, as well as perception and professional experience of child abuse or neglect varied significantly among participants; they scored from 43% to 82% on these tests.
The researcher concludes that the knowledge regarding child maltreatment among pediatricians is enough to create a strategy which would allow to introduce interventions to prevent child negligence and abuse. Therefore, pediatricians might play a key role in such strategies in Saudi Arabia.
Historical Background
Today, there is a variety of schools, support programs, and interventions for the children at risk and their families. However, it has not always been this way. The history of human society is filled with tragic and violent stories of oppression and discrimination against the individuals with disabilities. For instance, in ancient times, the children with noticeable disabilities or impairments of mental or physical character were actively or passively euthanized (Shonkoff and Meisels 8).
Later, during the medieval era such individuals were reduced to the roles of jesters or beggars, widely despised and mocked (Shonkoff and Meisels 8). Further, the practice of institutionalization of people with mental disabilities appeared dooming them to social isolation and inhumane treatments. Shamefully, the individuals with special needs only started to be targeted by interventional and educational programs during the 1960s (Shonkoff and Meisels 10).
In other words, the society first began to wonder about the determinants of the human capacities and abilities during the modern times; and this facilitated nature versus nurture argument. Due to a scientific research, many of the conditions currently can be detected and addressed at the earliest stages, and the development of other disabilities can be prevented or improved.
Legislation Development
The right of education for the persons with disabilities has been first passed in the United States in 1975 and known as Education for All Handicapped Children’s Act (EHA) (“Indiana First Steps System: Best Practices in Early Intervention” 1). The Act was amended in a decade and replaced with the policy that required all the states to develop and enforce Early Intervention Services for young children and their families that was also amended in a few years and changed into Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (“Indiana First Steps System: Best Practices in Early Intervention” 1). The further development of this legislation led to several changes.
As a result, an important adjustment was introduced. The new IDEA emphasized that the children with special needs who are characterized as being at risk, are provided the required support and education in natural environments. In other words, instead of isolating the infants from their homes and putting into segregated clinical environments, the children were assisted with their developmental and educational needs in specialized childcare homes and centers (“Indiana First Steps System: Best Practices in Early Intervention” 1).
Another important characteristic of the newest intervention and support programs for children at risk is the family-centered approach that allows the families of the target children to be fully engaged in the intervention and education processes (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities par. 6). Today, multiple programs targeting young children and infants with special needs have been developed and launched under this legislation.
Identification of Risks
Before being treated as the children at risk and placed into specialized programs, the infants and babies are to be carefully evaluated based on their abilities. Unfortunately, due to the increased number of various special schools and programs there is an ongoing competition between such organizations. Some of them may over-diagnose the infants in order to gain more clients and capitals.
However, when treated and implemented responsibly, the process of identification of the children at risk is to involve such steps as the examination of all the risk factors as well as protective impacts, the organization of ongoing observation for the children and their development, careful and thoughtful formulation of the risk status, the development of a plan addressing the individual needs of every eligible child, the delivery of the professional support and care services with the further observational data collection, and the provision of an intervention based on the acquired results (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities par. 3).
The contemporary intervention programs work based on the principle of early identification that means that all the risks have to be determined and addressed as early as possible. This aspect is important because early intervention allows the professionals deal with the risks using the upstream approach and prevent the development of some of the negative factors and outcomes at the root.
The risks are usually determined with the help of thorough observation and analysis of every child. For example, health issues and learning disabilities in young children and infants are located through the application of multiple maturation standards. The character of developmental delays and patterns helps that professionals to identify the type care required to address the appearing problems, minimize or slow them down.
The tight connection that exists between the children and their families may play both a positive and a negative role at this stage. The parents or caregivers who communicate with the child on the regular basis are the most likely to notice some abnormalities in their behavior or development very early and report them in search for help.
At the same time, often, parents fail or refuse to report various problems because they do not want to believe that something may be wrong with their child. This example explains how vital the cooperation of a child’s family is for their intervention. If an abnormality is reported, the process of monitoring of a child includes such steps as screening, the analysis of all the potential risks and protective factors, a careful observation, and the evaluation of the risk if it is detected (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities par. 12).
The risks may come from versatile sources of perinatal, biological, genetic and environmental characters (National Joint Committee on Learning Disabilities par. 14). At the same time, the presence of risk factors in a child’s daily life does not necessary warrant the future development of abnormalities in these children or the fact that the children will suffer any particular damages.
Supporting Services
Children and infants at risk require various supports and services to stimulate their further development and eliminate the deterioration of their conditions. The objective of the supports and services for a child at risk is to make sure that the child’s learning, developmental, or behavioral needs are met.
Besides, when it comes to young children at risk, the services for their support are to be family-centered, culturally sensitive, and adequate for the developmental pace of a child. The supporting services are to be directed at a variety of tasks. For instance, they are to include the family in the support process by, first of all, educating them about the problems their child is facing, and helping them understand what is happening with the child.
Moreover, the supporters are to provide thorough observation and evaluation of a child at risk in order to be able to design the most appropriate intervention program answering the needs of a child on every level. Also, it is the job of the supporting services to connect the family of a child at risk with various communities that can assist them.
In addition, these communities are to be compatible with the family’s views and cultural beliefs. Finally, the school education program of a child is to be coordinated with the developmental needs that may be fulfilled through the interaction of a child with the family members and caregivers.
Early Intervention
All the best modern practices of the intervention for young children are focused on the identification of the possible problems and risks as early as possible. This approach is viewed as the best practice due to multiple pieces of evidence provided by the researches that prove that early life experiences are the most crucial for the future development of a child (NECTAC 1).
The first three years of a child’s life are especially important because their neutral circuits still can be influenced. That way, the best practices of infant and toddler interventions have to target the children during these years mainly. This perspective is suitable for the practices that target developmental risks as well are for those focused on the environmental risks as the vulnerable brain of a child younger than three years is especially perceptive of all the external stressors such as impoverished living conditions, harmful surroundings, and emotional pressures. At the same time, positive experiences are also very influential. In addition to the high effectiveness of the early childhood intervention practices, they are also less costly than those provided to older children (NECTAC 2).
Moreover, the best practices work based on the principle that early identification of risks allows more effective prevention, and this is why they target the children during the first months after birth.
Currently, the need for such practices in the United States is very high. The delivery of interventions for all the children in need is limited by such factors as lack of qualified professionals and the unavailability of the interventions to some population groups. For instance, the research shows that families of color with children at risk receive appropriate services and interventions more rarely than those of white origin.
The Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP). Nelson et al. (2007) describe the results of BEIP, a project aimed at determining the effects of early institutional care on such an at-risk group as very young children who were left without parental attention. During the project, the cognitive outcomes of children left under institutional care were compared to those of kids who were placed into foster care and those who never left their family.
There were three groups of children: a starting group of children who were abandoned soon after their birth was studied carefully for some time; after that, half of them were placed into foster care (foster care group, FCG), while the other half were left in the institutional care (institutional group, IG).
The third group was comprised of kids who were not abandoned and lived with their biological parents (never-institutionalized group, NIG) (Nelson et al., 2007, p. 1938). Because there was a lack of families who were eager to adopt a child, the researchers launched a campaign to find families who would do so and to help these families.
The age of children in all the three groups ranged from 0 to 31. The children were observed at 42 and 54 months of age; their IQ and DQ were assessed. As the result of the study, it was found out that children placed in institutional care scored much lower than the others.
On the other hand, the children who were placed in foster care showed much greater performance; in addition, the earlier was their age when they were placed in foster care, the better were the outcomes. Finally, the children from the NIG showed the best performance (Nelson et al., 2007).
Not only the project helped some children to find foster parents but it also showed that placing children into foster care is much better for their outcomes than leaving them in institutional care, and that the younger the child is when they are placed into foster care, the better are the cognitive outcomes (Nelson et al., 2007).
Examples of Programs and Practices
The Abecedarian Project (1972-1985). This program targeted children of 0 to 8 years old and provided support for the low-income families of children at risk as well as intervention practices. The program addressed the issues of cognitive development of the children, their physical health, and the impact of substance abuse providing preschool and school intervention (Kilburn 26).
The families enrolled in the program were referred by the hospitals, social services, and clinics. The program employees visited the families at their homes, and the program also had child care centers with a free transportation option where children were grouped and cared for based on their age. The program outcomes were evaluated several times as the participants grew up.
The Abecedarian Project demonstrated effectiveness in both short and long terms as the enrolled children showed progress at school, fewer school failure incidents, fewer cases of drug and alcohol addictions, smaller percentage of becoming teenage parents, and more balanced adult development at the age of 21 (Kilburn 31).
Infant Health and Development Program (IHDP) (1985-1988). IHDP was another program for young children that provided such services as health and parent education, family support, and works through home visiting and child care centers. IHDP targeted such risks as behavioral and cognitive impairments, substance dependence, and physical health issues. The program worked as a randomized controlled trial with the children with reduced birth weight as participants. T
he evaluation of the program showed significant positive effects in every cognitive aspect (IQ, speech, motor skills, perception). The control and intervention groups of children were compared throughout many years just like in the Abecedarian Project. The findings showed that the intervention groups demonstrated a much more advanced academic performance, better learning skills, better speech and vocabulary; besides, the intervention children were less likely to develop behavior problems (Kilburn 282).
Ohio Early Intervention State Program for Children with Permanent Hearing Loss (2004-2007). There exist a vast number of studies which show that interventions are most effective when implemented at as early an age as possible (Meinzen-Derr, Wiley, & Choo, 2011, p. 580). Meinzen-Derr et al. (2011) studied the effects of early intervention programs provided by the State of Ohio for children aged 0-5 years with a permanent hearing loss.
The interventions were carried out mainly at home; they “include[d] direct parent mentoring, parent educational forums, a deaf mentor program, a loaner hearing aid bank, and a lending library”; these programs were family-centered and proposed help to parents in the natural environment (Meinzen-Derr et al., 2011, p. 581). The researchers performed a statistical analysis and studied the effects of these programs during 2004-2007.
It was found out that early enrollment in programs for developing language skills is crucial, and, while the critical age by which children should be enrolled in such programs was not yet unequivocally identified, the study supports the statement that kids need to start receiving the described early intervention services before the age of 6 months in order to achieve best results and develop the age-appropriate language skills (Meinzen-Derr et al., 2011, p. 590).
Modern Curriculums and Materials
The materials for the early childhood interventions are based on family-centered approach; this means that the required needs of the children are addressed through the cooperation with their parents. The qualified professionals who visit the families at their homes deliver special materials designed for the particular issues and risks that children are facing.
Home visiting personal has a goal to provide quality education for the parents concerning the conditions and needs of their infants and babies. This education may be provided through such materials as demonstrational videos and tutorials, written guides, charts, schemes, schedules, and plans. The parents need to be prepared to address the needs of their children the best way possible, and this is why the intervention professionals are to put a lot of effort working with the families.
Further, the work of parents is assessed and evaluated in relation to the improvements of the children’s conditions and environments. The parents may be also backed up by local communities and services. The intervention professionals are to ensure the contact between them and the families. Infants who are older and can be educated in child care centers are provided with age-appropriate and safe environments and educational materials specific to their learning and developmental needs. Some of such materials can be special games, tools, and kits used to address particular skills and abilities of the young learners.
The curriculum for young children and infants is shaped based on such principles as the engagement of the family for the facilitation of ongoing intervention, use of emotions as drivers of learning experiences, creation and maintenance of intimate connections between the tutors and the learners to ensure safety and trust, the stimulation for the children’s natural need for exploration, individual approach based on specific needs and background of a child (culture and language sensitivity included), diverse practices addressing all domains of cognitive, behavioral, and physical development and designed to target the areas of deficiencies with special attention.
The curriculum is to include the participation of the parents, and regular exchange of information between them and the educators to evaluate the progress and further needs of a child.
An individualized approach is especially important for the children and infants at risk because the curriculum and the materials will vary significantly based on the aspects and factors that require intervention. Interventions for at-risk children can be challenging to design due to the currently ongoing debate of inclusion versus exclusion of the at-risk children from the standard child care groups.
A Curriculum for Teaching Word Recognition to Young Children at Risk. It is stated that children from certain groups (such as kids from non-white families, and/or those who have a low socioeconomic status, and/or those who simply experience difficulties learning to read) were shown to often have difficulties benefiting from standard school curriculums aimed at developing literacy skills; it is stated that such children frequently might require additional intensive training in order to fully benefit from these standard curriculums (Parette, Blum, Boeckmann, & Watts, 2009, p. 393). Parette et al. (2009) offer a program that could be used to teach preschoolers from these at-risk groups literacy and word recognition skills.
The crux of the program is to strengthen the well-known model of direct instruction (DI) with contemporary computer technologies, specifically, by using the Microsoft PowerPoint software. Children often experience difficulties with learning orthography (visual representation) and phonemics (the sounds composition) of words (Parette et al., 2009, p. 396).
To help them, the teacher should choose a number of words that are orthographically and phonemically connected (e.g., cat, hat, bat), and use the PowerPoint with visual representations of words (e.g., with pictures of a cat, a hat, and a bat).
By showing appearing and fading pictures, words, and letters from these words, the educator first demonstrates the learners how to correctly read and spell words. After that, the teacher makes images appear and fade again, and asks the children to do the same, showing them how words are spelled and read. Importantly, the program can then be used by parents at home, if they have access to a computer. If they do not, it is possible to print the materials and still engage the family in educating their child (Parette et al., 2009).
An Intervention for Kindergarteners with the Risk of Developing Reading Failure. As it was noted before, “children at risk” is rather a broad term, and such kids might have a variety of backgrounds. It is often possible that children from diverse cultures are gathered in one kindergarten group, which might make it more difficult for diverse kids who do not have a good understanding of the language of instruction to learn basic reading skills.
Also, some children might suffer from low naming speed and automaticity problems. In addition, there might exist other various reasons for complications while learning how to read. This is a serious problem, for children who show long-term reading difficulties often continue having trouble with reading skills in the future (Kamps et al., 2008, p. 101-102).
The study by Kamps et al. (2008) researched a group of 83 kindergarteners who were at significant risk of reading failure. An intervention was applied in order to help the kids overcome these potential problems. The interventions were labeled “Direct Instruction” and applied as secondary and tertiary level interventions; they were designed using an evidence-based curriculum, and delivered to small groups of children comprised of one to six students.
The interventions lasted for 30-40 minutes and took place at least thrice per week within a span of 2 years. The results were measured using the “Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills” (DIBELS) and “Woodcock Reading Mastery” assessment systems (Kamps et al., 2008, p. 103).
The study showed that interventions implemented in smaller groups using more directed and explicit methods yielded very positive results (some of them even reached grade-level performance), better than those applied to larger groups and/or by using less directed and explicit methods (Kamps et al., 2008, p. 112). The most effective curricula for interventions were “Reading Mastery,” “Early Interventions in Reading,” and “Read Well”; “Programmed Reading” and “Open Court” also led to highly beneficial results (Kamps et al., 2008, p. 107, 111, 112).
Conclusion
To sum up, it should be pointed out that children at risk require additional help and protection from the society to successfully develop into an individual who would be a full-fledged member of their community. To provide such help and protection, it is important to identify the children at risk and develop special types of interventions to address their problems, as well as to create curriculums which would take into account their specific needs.
As the cultures of different peoples differ, it is clear that there might be issues that put some children at risk and are related to the culture of this or that nation. Therefore, it is important to research the problems of children at risk specifically in Saudi Arabia in order to help them in this particular country.
This study has found out the following. To improve the quality of special care and education, it might be useful to introduce some new laws that would establish institutions for early identification of impairments and early intervention (Aldabas, 2015). To help the impaired children communicate with their peers, a number of types of special training might be added to their curriculum (Xie, 2013). Inclusive education and transition planning help improve children outcomes when they leave school (Al-Hoshan, 2009).
Children with learning disabilities are likely to benefit from their teachers gaining access to various supporting materials and resources (Alrubaian, 2014). Many parents of children with autism spectrum disorder in Saudi Arabia believe that their children’s condition comes from supernatural forces and do not implement behavioral, developmental or educational interventions for their children, which means that the situation needs to be addressed to improve outcomes (Alqahtani, 2012).
And, finally, pediatricians in Saudi Arabia are mostly competent enough to help deal with child abuse, which means that strategies to fight this problem might, among others, rely on this group of professionals to address the issue (Habib, 2012).
The contemporary approach to the children at risk is much more humane than that of earlier times. Today, there is a great variety of evidence-based educational and developmental programs and projects for the children exposed to various challenges. The curricula, materials, and intervention strategies are designed based on the perceived needs of an assessed child.
Family is a crucial acting party during the intervention as they represent the main environment of an infant. That is why the intervention materials are to target families and caregivers providing them with necessary knowledge and education to enable them to support the child and have a better understanding of their challenges.
References
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