Application of Social Work Methods with Care Takers of Special Children as Perceived by Social Work Student

Abstract

The term ‘Special Children’ in general specifies the physical and developmental disability or behavioural problem. Some of the commonly seen disabilities are cognitive disorder (MR), vision impairment, mental health condition, intellectual disability, acquired brain injury, Autism, speech and language disorder. Physical disability may be a temporary one or a permanent one in order to a person’s physical capacity or mobility they include Cerebral palsy, Epilepsy and muscular dystrophy. Developmental disability is Down Syndrome, Autism, Dyslexia and processing disorder, the behavioural problems are Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), conduct disorder and others which require additional assistance for the individual from the caretakers. A special School provides special education for the children with severe learning disabilities and other disabilities. According to the census of 2011, more than one million people in the world live with some form of disability. In India out of 121cr population 2.68cr (2.21%) population are disabled among that 56% are male and 44% are female in particular 69% of disabled persons are from a rural background and 31% from an urban background. In India, Uttar Pradesh is the state which has highest of persons with disability and the state which has the lowest number of persons with disability is Jammu and Kashmir. In Tamil Nadu, the statistics of 2011 has 4.4% of persons with disability. The problems faced by the disabled are conveyance, poverty, lack of family support and public support likewise the care takers of disabled persons also face problems such as stress, depression and also difficulty in coping up with society. The interventions which can be implemented to the care takers are family system programmes, instructional programmes, interactional programmes, counselling and motivation.

Keywords: Special Children, Disability, Care Taker, Intervention.