EFFICACY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL MANAGEMENT OF SPECIFIC DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDER OF SCHOLASTIC SKILLS: A CLINICAL CASE STUDY

Children with poor scholastic performance become source of immense stress for parents and teachers, which in turn, reduce the selfconfidence of children. These children are at risk of developing stress related disorders and behaviour disorders. Children with Specific developmental disorder of scholastic skills (SDDSS) have disturbances in acquisition of scholastic skills from early stages of development. These disturbances are not due to lack of opportunity to learn. They are not mentally retarded and they do not have a cqui red bra in disease or trauma International Classification of Disease-10 (ICD, 2005) . These children have significant impairment in areas related to reading, writing and arithmetical skills. The subtypes of Specific developmental disorder of scholastic skills (SDDSS) frequently co-occur with one another (Lyon, 1996). Children with specific reading disorder have significant impairment in the development of reading skills (Galuschka et al., 2014). The reading performance will be significantly below the level expected on the basis of age, general intelligence and school placement. They experience significant impairment in the acquisition of reading accuracy, reading fluency and reading comprehension which cannot be accounted for by low IQ, visual acuity problems, neurological damage or poor educational oppor tunit ies (Lyon et al., 2003). However, the arithmetical skills of the child will be significantly below the expected level based on age, general intelligence and school placement. The arithmetical difficulties include failure to understand the basic concepts of maths, inability to understand mathematical terms or signs and difficulty in learning mathematical tables.
They also have defects in problem conceptualization and calculation (Jordan & Montani, 1997). These children have problems with identification of numbers, counting and retrieval of arithmetic combination (Gersten et al., 2005). In the mixed disorder of scholastic skills arithmetical and reading or spelling skills are significantly impaired. There is high comorbidity between reading disability and mathematics disability. In children with specific reading disorder, there are deficits in phoneme awareness and naming speed. Specific disorder of arithmetical skills is associated with defects in set shifting (Chan & Ho, 2010).

NEED FOR THE CASE STUDY
Individuals with specific developmental disorder often do not reach their potential. Many individuals with developmental disorder who did not finish their education and felt that they had little to contribute to society. There was a dearth of the case study on Psychological Management of Specific Developmental Disorder of Scholastic Skills. The main purpose of this study was to educate the parents, to improve writing skills, to improve spellings and reading ability. This study also tells how to enhance the self confidence of the child and improve selfconcept and work on strengths and skills of the child.

CASE FORMULATION
Master “A” the 9 years old boy of Hindu religion, belonging from the middle class. The informant was the child himself and the mother. He was brought by parents with the complaints of not performing well in studies as he started schooling at the age of three and half years in nursery and he was always used to be an average student in academics. He significantly faces the problem in spelling and reading and the writing skills since 2nd standard, it was manageable that time but as the difficulty level of study increases he was unable to perform well. He was able to pass with good marks in mathematics but in language subjects like Hindi and especially English.As a result of getting less marks in language subjects in comparison of other students despite of putting lots of hard work, his confidence was shaked and he gets very sensitive if someone comments on his performance in academics and as a result either he shows a little anger towards that person or in general and also at times he cries for the same. He has just completed his fourth class and got promoted to fifth class. But parent s are very concerned about his academic performance so they brought him for consultation. He has no past history of mental or physical illness and never took any treatment for this problem.

PSYCHOSOCIAL INTERVENTION
First Session: The child was reported along with mother. Psycho education was given to the mother about nature of the learning difficulty and its prevalence and prognosis. The parents were asked to reinforce the child for smaller improvement in his studies and also to reinforce the other abilities. Child asked to write A to Z alphabets both in capitals and smalls so as to target his habit of mixing small letters with capital letters. So for this reason the therapist teaches the big and small letters differences and coping of the letters and also teaches the writing skills. He did some mistakes but therapist explained him how to write in a correct manner. Finally, home based management was discussed and also home work was given as to write A to Z alphabets again and to copy the paragraph and to read a poem from his book in front of his mother, as to target the reading and writing skills of the child.

Second Session: In this session again he was made to practice it but this time phonics are also taught to him as to target his reading problem and also for overall understanding of the child. Patient mother reported that the child spends more time in play and shows less interest in studies. So activity scheduling was done. The schedule was made according to the child preference and also discussed the timings with the patient mother. Home work was given, to write capital and small alphabet, he was also asked to write paragraph about him so as to focus on his writing skill and was asked to read a story from book in front of mother as to increase his reading accuracy and fluency.

Third Session: He got familiar with phonics and also alphabets were checked, and there were no mistakes from A to Z. In copy writing also he performed well but there were two mistakes and there errors were found in terms of no full stop and comas. For the purpose of improving his spelling mistakes therapist made him to write three letter words. He did some mistakes and was corrected for the same.

Fourth Session: In this session he was asked to write the spellings of four letters. Patient’s mother reported that child doesn’t follow schedule and also he doesn’t finishes his homework. So the activity scheduling was rescheduled two hours to one and half hour and the parents were asked to reinforce the child for smaller improvement in his studies.

Fifth Session: Child was appreciated by the therapist . There were no mistakes on alphabets. He perceives problem on only with letter C and F. In copy writing there were four mistakes in one full page and there were no grammatical error. His overall confidence in self was also increased as he was constantly reinforced by both therapist and parents on his achievement in learning process.

Sixth Session: Overall improvement was noticed. The rapist teaches the specific study skills like mnemonic method (linkage, traffic rule, pig method and lock method), time management, study skills method, minimize the distraction, multisensory method, PQRST (P=preview, Q= Question, R= reading, S= survey and T= test) method and healthy diet. Al last parents were told to continue to do the contingency management and activity scheduling at home.