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DOCUMENT RESUME ED 038 464 UD 009 940 AUTHOR Hainsworth, Peter K.; And Others TITLE A Psychoneurologically-Oriented Curriculum Guide for the Preschool Disadvantaged Child. INSTITUTION Meeting Street School, Providence, R.I. PUB DATE 69 NOTE 234p. EDRS PRICE EDRS Price MF-$1.00 HC-$11.80 DESCRIPTORS *Basic Skills,, Body Image, Child Developments *Curriculum Guides, *Developmental Tasks, *Disadvantaged Youth, Experimental Curriculum, Information Processing, Language Skills, Motor Development, Preschool Children, *Preschool Curriculum, Preschool Learaing, Psychomotor Objectives, Psychomotor Skills ABSTRACT This guide provides basic informationon the development, observation, and teaching of basic language, visual-perceptual-motor, and body awareness and control skillsto disadvantaged children. It is presented in three sectionsdevoted to specific analyses of how skills develop within each of three modalities, and how to observe and teach children to bemore effective informationprocessors in the specific modality under consideration. Such discussion is intended to provide theteacher with the information necessary to understand the overalllevel of functioning of a class of children,as well as each particular child's pattern of skills. This facilitates the organizationof a general teaching program and the individualization of theprogram to the needs of the group and to those of particular children.(JM) U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH. EDUCATION S WELFARE OFFICE OF EDUCATION -0,E0 1-'1..) THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE .4. PERSON OR OROANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY. 4.4* co A PSYCHONEUROLOGICALLY-ORIENTEDCURRICULUM GUIDE re\ FOR THE PRESCHOOL DISADVANTAGED CHILD'. CI CM WI Peter K. Hainsworth, Ph. D. Marian L. Siqueland, M. S, Nancy D' Wolf, R. P. T. Patricia Komich, 0. T. R. Avonne Seideman, M. A. Barbara Burpee, R. P. T. Nancy Harris, 0. T. R. Mary Lu Lang, M. A. Suzanne Hallett, M. A. Rose Ann McAndrew, M. Ed. Meeting Street School, Children's Rehabilitation Center 333 Grotto Avenue Providence, Rhode Island02906 *This curriculum guidewas developed as part of the work of Grant B89-4596 from the Office of Economic Opportunity:The Development of Psychoneurologically-Oriented Screening Testsand Curriculum. for the Disadvantaged Preschool Child, 1968-69. This Curriculum Guide provides basic information on the development, observation, and teaching of basic language, visual- perceptual-motor, and body awareness and control skills to disadvantaged children.It is an adjunct to the Physician and Educator Screening Test of PsychoneurologicalEfficiency developed under the same grant.The Screening Tests sample a child's input, integration and output skills in the above three information processing modalities and alert the physician and/or teacher to those children who may need further diagnostic workup and special programs in order to progress adequately in the Head Start classroom. Both the Screening Test and the Curriculum Guide have the information processing model as their basis. As discussed in Hainsworth and Siqueland, (1968), Table 1 summarizes this composite information processing model. Information flows through the processes of orientation, intake, integration, output and feedback. This flow may occur within or between the three major modalities throughwhich children are educated, i. e. the Visual-Perceptual-Motor, Language, and Body Awareness and Control.Children with psychoneurological inefficiencies usually break down in one or more of these five processes, within or across one or more of these three modalities. This model helps demonstrate the sweep of information processing. First the child must focus his attention, select the appropriate cues from the background, and then retain the pattern and sequence of information taken in through the visual, auditory and kinesthetic discrimination of form-space-time cues. At higher levels of integration, the child must select the proper set for associating to and retrieving the relevant information before effective reasoning and category sorting processes can begin. To express the results of hisproblem solving, the child must select the appropriate response sequences for the outgoing information and execute various motor patterns in the eye-hand, speech articulation, or body control areas.Finally, he must continually monitor his efforts to make them relevant to the goals which he or his teacher or tester have set. The two Screening tests provide the means whereby the Head Start physician and teacher jointly may survey the information processing skills of children between the ages of 4-6 and 7-5.Both assess children's skills in the Body Awareness and Control, Visual-Perceptual-Motor and Language modalities; the physician concentrates more on the underlying PERCEPTUAL-MOTORVISUAL-TABLE 1: AN INFORMATIONLANGUAGE PROCESSINGBODYANDMODEL* AWARENESS CONTROL INTAKEORIENTATION SELECTIONVisualDISCRIMINATION OF APPROPRIATEFOCUS OF FORM,OFAuditory ATTENTION SPACECUES FROM AND TIMEBACKGROUNDKinestheticCUES Ns RETENTION OF PATTERN AND SEQUENCE OFINCOMING INFORMATION 1 INTEGRATION RETRIEVALASSOCIATION SETOF TO RELEVANT SELECTION PREVIOUS INFORMATION LEARNING .OUTPUT SELECTIONEXECUTIONEye-Hand OF OF APPROPRIATE PRECISE ANDArticulation SEQUENCES CONTROLLEDFOR MOVEMENT OUTGOINGBody ControlPATTERNSINFORMATION FEEDBACK.*From Hainsworth & Siqueland,RELEVANCE 1969IMMEDIATE (page 6) OF RESPONSE RESPONSE TO MONITORING OVERALL GOALS sensory-motor skills and the teacheron the integrative and functional use of these skills.The following Curriculum Guide aids the teacher in handling theidentified psychoneurologically inefficient children ina classroom setting by providing information on the development, observation and teaching ofthe skills in these three modalities. Structuring the classroomenvironment to assist children to be more effective informationprocessors or learners requires that careful attention be paidto what is presented in the classroomand how it is presented. One of thebasic assumptions of this Curriculum Guide is that the teacher mustunderstand the children's level of development in the above informationprocessing modalities in order to match what she presents in theclassroom to these levels of development and challenge-the childrento reach toward the next level. Since the main goal of the educationalprocess is to encourage each child to be an independent learnerin the group, this must be donewithin a group milieu.Further, the particular patterns ofeach child must be observed in some detail and theprogram individualized to meet his needs-- still within the group milieu. To match the teachingprogram to the children's level of development, classroom observationor diagnosis of the children is interwoven with the development ofteaching strategies and techniques, in a spiralling sequentialmanner. The teacher presents material to the children so that shecan observe the group's functional level. Understanding the group's overall levelin the three modalities then helps the teacherprogram her teaching materials so the childrencan learn effectively.Then, she observes (tests) whether theyhave, in fact, learned the material before shediscontinues teaching this particular skill or concept.This is basically the test-teach-test-exitmodel advocated by Miller, Galanter andPr ihram (1960).Although intimately interwoven and ongoing continuallyin the classroom, the diagnostic observationand teachingprocesses are discussed separately in the following sections and inthe Curriculum Guide. pialnlstic or ObservationalProcess The Physician and Educator screeningtests are alerting devices to the teacher and physician thata child may be an inefficient learner because he is unable touse language, eye-hand (visual-perceptual-motor), and body awareness and gross motor informationprocessing skills effectively.Inadequate performance indicates that this child should be studied intensively to assess body processes,intellectual processes, emotional process as well as more in-depth analysis ofinformation processing skills.This is traditionally accomplished through the diagnostic batteries of the psychologist, specialeducator, pediatrician, neurologist, etc.However, the classroom situation itself can and should be used to gain more detailed information aboutchildren's functioning, particularly when the classroom environment isgoing to be used as a tool to help the children become moreeffective learners. This process can serve as a partial substitute for afurther individual educational or psychological diagnostic workup or can beused in conjunction with same. The children's response to the teaching program isstudied first, in a general way, to learn more about theirlevels of behavioral and information processing skills.The purpose of such an analysis is to determine how to mass the general programand gear specific activity presentations to their skill levels.Then, finer and finer assessment of these same factors, as deemed necessary tounderstand each individual child's particular strengths and weaknesses,leads to finer and finer analysis of how to present information to each childwithin the group. Throughout the Curriculum Guide, there are diagnosticand observational schedules that can be utilized to look at the children'sgeneral response to program as well as to assess specificskills or problem areas within the Language, Visual-Perceptual-Motor andBody Awareness and Control modalities. Thus, observation