INTEGRATED APPROACH

Integrated Approach: Working with Children with Additional Needs and Families

Integrated Approach: Working with Children with Additional Needs and Families

Introduction

There are numerous children who born with several additional needs not only to become a sufficient part of society, but also to survive in the society. The term additional needs initially highlight the common perception which is related to children with mental or physical disabilities who certainly requires sufficient assistance, especially in the early years of development. However, these additional needs are not only limited to physical or mental disabilities, which hurdles the survival of a child in society, but the term additional needs has an immensely vast spectrum which can vary in every child (Wall, 2011, pp. 33-35).

Many of the children fortunately attain the fulfilments regarding their additional needs due to proper assistance and assessments, but there is a significant amount of children who do not acquire the fulfilments regarding their additional needs. In many cases from history, multiple numbers of children were being killed due to abuse by their own guardians (The House of Commons, 2003, p. 5). It illuminates the need for appropriate assessment for children regarding their additional needs. In this regards, this paper will explicate the term children with additional needs, and it will present some problems which are faced by families of these children. In addition, it will also present an integrated approach which can assist these children and their families in the early year setting along with the benefits and challenges which are associated with the integrated approach.

Children with Additional Needs

The term additional needs refers to the condition of any child in which the child is suffering from any physical, cognitive, sensory, communication, learning or behavioural disability. The term additional needs also incorporate all of those conditions which have a long term effect on individual or any other life limiting state. In addition, all of the special requirements which are related to emotional health of a child with additional needs and his requirements for wellbeing are also accumulated in additional needs. These additional needs have significant impacts on the daily life of children with additional needs are necessary to be addressed in an appropriate manner for improving the quality of their lives (Wall, 2011, pp. 84-87).

The children with additional needs are pertained to have several critical difficulties which can not be considered in a common manner. For example, if a child is suffering from learning disabilities in early years, then it is significantly difficult to identify by his parents or guardians who hold the common view of children regardless of information about additional needs. There several additional needs, which can easily be addressed in the early year setting in a child (Buckley, 2005, p. 113). For instance, any of the physical disability in a child can easily be identified even in the early years, on the basis of which appropriate measures can be taken to fulfil the additional needs of a disabled child. However, several other additional needs, which are related to behaviour, cognition or ...