Usefulness of functional learning for physically disabled child in adapted preschool programmes

Physically disabled children in Slovenia can visit preschool programmes and get special education services or preschool programmes for children with disabilities. There, education is based on games. Games give them opportunities to develop and learn. Children are naturally motivated for playing games. Physically disabled children cannot participate and are unmotivated for playing games because of their disabilities and lack of motoric functions. They are not researchers and they do not experience the world around them. Professionals working in preschool programmes with special abilities children, have to offer different toys, accessories, materials and means to these children. They have to adopt methods and skills in the way disabled children will have the opportunity to express their strengths and will be able to improve in all aspects. This research deals with the efficiency of Functional learning. We used this method with a three-year-old girl with physical disabilities. The girl has a developmental disability and right sided hemiparesis and thus progresses with a slower pace. We treated her for three months with intensive care using Functional learning in her everyday activities. We wanted to find out whether the girl would improve (fine motoric skills and independence) within the three months of intensive therapy using Functional learning and implementing elements of Functional learning in everyday routine in preschool care. We described different activities with usage of special learning tools and named everyday activities where these learning tools were used. We did forty treatments. We concluded that the girl reached most of the aims we had planned. She can use the setting tools (pincer grasp and the one number-sense skill) and she uses them in her everyday life (getting dressed, getting undressed, eating and washing). She has even reached a higher level using these tools, matching pairs, but still cannot use this method completely. She can match pairs with different objects and pictures but she cannot match similar pictures. She imitates circular drawing and scrawling. Based on our findings we gave recommendations for other individual treatment