Understanding and Preventing Learned Helplessness in Children who are Congenitally Deaf-Blind

Abstract

The absence of both distance senses creates the need for children who are congenitally deaf-blind to rely on others to motivate them to explore and to provide the connections between exploration and communication, which is the foundation of concept development. This article links the literature on learned helplessness with best practices in teaching children who are deaf-blind to address how caregivers and teachers can prevent or reduce learned helplessness in these children.

The Four Quadrant Model of Facilitated Learning: A clinically based action research project

“…The proposal by Marks (1998) — that the manner in which a skill was taught might induce helpless behaviour on the part of the child — raised the possibility that therapy goals could, in fact, be undermined by the therapist's own behaviours. Factors that could promote learned helplessness, such as holding low expectations of the client, rewarding uncommitted efforts and anticipating the need for help, were identifiable in the first author's everyday actions.…”

“…In a review of instructional style and learned helplessness in children who are deaf-blind, Marks (1998) identified a number of factors that might lead toward helpless learning behaviours. Three distinct categories emerged: (i) those related to the individual (e.g.…”

Assessment and instruction of hands-on problem-solving and object interaction skills in children who are deafblind

“…The literature does contain a number of references to learned helplcssness in . children who are deafiblind (Marks, 1998;Schweigert & Rowland, 1992 ~ Sacks, 99~). hat may initially appear to be learned helplessness in the child who is deafblind, however, may actually turn out to be a lack of skills, a lack of opportunities to learn new skills (marks, 99~), or ~ lack of motivation.…”

One of society's most vulnerable groups? A systematically conducted literature review exploring the vulnerability of deafblind people

“…The potential for bias that this engenders (Padgett ) is acknowledged by most, but not all, authors. The two literature review papers (Marks , Danermark & Möller ) provide no information on how the literature used was found, selected and appraised. Furthermore, Marks (, p. 200) relates the literature used to ‘best practices in teaching children who are deaf‐blind’; however, there is no indication in the paper detailing how these best practices were identified or validated.…”

“…, Gullacksen et al . ); in relation to congenitally deafblind children, this can include what Marks (, p. 208) identifies as ‘extreme dependence’ owing to one‐to‐one support needs. Such high levels of dependence on others have been linked to increased vulnerability to abuse (Calderbank , Association of Directors of Social Services , Hague et al .…”