Holistic Approach as a Strategy for Special Education in India

Introduction

In India, a host of circumstances surround every situation. When a child is found to be lagging in multiple skill areas, a process of denial, protecting the child from society as well as declining appropriate professional help to the child creates a trickle-down effect through the years resulting in uneven development in the child. The Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act (2016) aims to provide inclusive education in all schools, macro-level cultural factors like language barriers and economic barriers have affected the efficacy of this aim and at a micro level pedagogical practices within classrooms, remain resistant to change, again due to cultural specificities. Special education at the heart of its intention seeks to ease the child through the process of inclusion to a life within a normal environment as opposed to segregating and grouping children. Much has been accomplished in the last two decades in India, but hidden disabilities like learning disabilities are yet to see the light of day in terms of adequate awareness, early diagnosis, and early intervention. The scenario is additionally complicated by economic disadvantages and cultural pressures. The multilingual Indian context further exacerbates the situation. Hidden disabilities like Specific Learning Disability (SLD), comprise a heterogeneous group of disorders with the main impairment being cognitive processing, which leads to challenges in academic performance and has psychosocial implications. Impairment should be present in history, school reports, and psychological assessment and persistence for at least six months as per Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5th version (DSM-5) criteria by American Psychiatric Association (2013). From research by Chacko &Vidhukumar (2020), it is known that the prevalence of learning disabilities among primary school children in India is 11.2% for dyslexia, 12.5% for dysgraphia, and 10.5% for dyscalculia. In the current scenario, the approach of schools is to refer only children who are noticeably struggling with formal assessment which would be at the high school level, and extend available provisions like exemption of second language. The children struggling at the primary level are left languishing till their difficulties are so great that the delayed intervention they receive is often too little too late and they end up dropping out of school and shifting to special schools. A major goal of inclusive education led to the development of an early warning identification system by UNICEF (2017) which looks at the environmental circle as well as behavioral patterns of the child within a wider social context. Today, inclusion has thus been added to the preschool curriculum at Anganwadi centers in the hope of promoting early identification and providing holistic development. All along there have been recommendations to adopt a holistic approach in early childhood development. A holistic approach has been described as taking into consideration all facets of the development of a child including physical, emotional, economic, and intellectual. It allows the child to develop uniquely, focusing on individual strengths without the constraints of the traditional classroom which is norm based and competitive. It is relevant to consider the holistic approach as a valuable approach toward inclusion. Both keep the child s interests at its core. In special education, the holistic approach is relevant from two aspects, assessment as well as intervention. Holistic education aims to equip children to face challenges in life in a healthy manner.