THE FUNCTIONAL SKILLS OF VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS IN IED-SS.

Mrs.T.Premalatha and Mrs.R.Vaijayanthi. Asst.Prof., Dept of Education, Avinashilingam Institute for Home Science and Higher Education for Women, Coimbatore-641043 Tamilnadu. ...................................................................................................................... Manuscript Info Abstract ......................... ........................................................................ Manuscript History Received: 08 August 2019 Final Accepted: 10 September 2019 Published: October 2019 The overall objective of the study is to find out the Functional skills of visually impaired students in Coimbatore district and difference among them due to age, gender and nature. The present study revealed that significant differences were observed. The present study reported that the totally blind children showed independency in achieving Functional skills. Likewise the study also discovered that there is no difference in achieving Functional skills among different age groups and gender.


ISSN: 2320-5407
Int. J. Adv. Res. 7(10), 484-490 485 sense of safety and belonging through supportive relationships Functional skills refer to the skills that students learn that provide them with the opportunity to work, play, socialize, and take care of personal needs to the highest level possible. Students who are blind or visually impaired, require adaptations to the curriculum that address their unique learning needs. All students with disabilities, and especially those who are blind or visually impaired, will need concrete experiences, unifying experiences and opportunities to learn by doing within a natural setting. Students with visual impairments will need particular assistance with those skills acquired primarily through vision.

Significance Of The Study
Functional skills have been given important consideration keeping in mind their significance towards the performance in day to day tasks. Comparatively significant research has been conducted on achievement of Functional skills in relation to age, gender and nature of visually impaired students.
Objectives:- 1. To study the achievement of Functional skills by visually impaired students in relation to their age in inclusive set up. 2. To study the achievement of Functional skills by visually impaired students in relation to the gender in inclusive classroom. 3. To study the achievement of Functional skills by visually impaired students in relation to nature in inclusive education.

Scope And Limitations
This research study the achievement of Functional skills of visually impaired students in Coimbatore district school students in relation to a few selected variables like age, gender and nature. The Functional skills are measured by using checklist and questionnaire. The main purpose of the study is to find out whether there is differences in age, gender and nature. Based on the analysis and discussion of results implications are drawn. Due to practical constraints the sample size was limited to 40 students in Coimbatore district in Inclusive schools. However, it is felt that inspite of the above mentioned limitations the findings of the study can be generalized to a great extent , since care was taken to make every step in the procedure of the study as objective as possible.

Review Of The Related Literature
Rahaman, Muhammed Mahbubur (2011) viewed a phenomenological study to understand and describe the inclusive education practices for students with disabilities in secondary schools in Bangladesh. This study intends to answer the main research question: How do teachers in secondary schools in Bangladesh understand inclusion? The research used a phenomenological research design consisting of participant interviews and observations. An additional questionnaire was used to measure teacher attitudes and understanding of teaching strategies. A total of 12 interviews (two for each participant classroom teacher) and 12 observations (two of each participant) were conducted. Participants found that student-centric evidence-based teaching and learning strategies are more effective than their traditional lecture-based teaching and Jeanette,et al ( 2012 ) conducted a study to investigate the influence of three types of variables (teachers' backgrounds, the current teaching situation and characteristics of students with disabilities) on Taiwanese first-grade teachers' perceptions of inclusive education. A mail survey was conducted with all first-grade teachers in a metropolitan city in central Taiwan. After excluding cases with missing data, the sample size for this study was 321. Results showed that in general teachers' perceptions of inclusive education were in the middle range, neither highly negative nor highly positive.

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Erten,et al ( 2012 ) conducted a study on conceptual and methodological challenges of doing research in the field of inclusive education and revisit school effectiveness research literature to inform future research. First, we present the rationale for inclusive education and briefly review the evolution of special needs education. Then, we discuss limitations of current research on inclusive education. Next, we present school-and classroom-level findings of school effectiveness research to highlight how it can influence the inclusive education research agenda. We conclude by presenting future directions for research.
Kathleen Tait & Nola Purdie (2010) used the Interaction withDisabled Persons scale to explore the attitudes of preservice teachers at alarge Australian University to people with disabilities. Using structuralequation modeling the factor structure of the IDP was tested. The findingsreported significant effects for type of course, age, gender, language andfrequency of contact the magnitude of these effects was minimal. It wasalso found that changes in student teachers attitudes toward disability over a one year general teacher training course were found to be minimal.

Methodology:-
" The survey is in briefly a method of analysis in scientific and orderly form for defined purpose of given social situation of problem or population" Herman, (2005).The method adopted in the study is survey method. " Survey research is an organized attempt to analyze interpret and report the present status of social institution group or area Whitney, F. L (2005)

Selection Of Tool
Tool is an important instrument to collect data. For collecting new, unknown data required for the study of any problem one may use various devices. For every type of research we need certain instrument to gather new facts or to explore new fields. In the present study the investigator selected "checklist" as the most important tool for collecting data.

Construction of tool Checklist:
The checklist was prepared to find out the functional and social skills of visually impaired students. The checklist consists of 30 questions including social skills, emotional management skills ,communication skills, verbal behaviour and response skills and personal care skills. The response from the students for the above skills will be evaluated and marked by the researcher for every student selected for the research study.

Pilot Study
A pilot study is a" small scale replica "of the main study. It is the rehearsal of the main study. It covers the entire process of research preparation of a broad plan of the study, construction of tools, collection of data, processing and analysis of data and report writing. The selected tool was first used with Avinashilingam Girls higher Secondary school and C.S.I Girls Higher secondary school with 14 Visually impaired children to find the reliability of the tool. After the tool was found to be reliable, it was used to collect data from other students in the other school for final study.

Selection Of The Area
The area selected for the purpose of the study was limited to Coimbatore district only. The example selected for the present study consists of 40 students in 5 schools implementing IED -SS programme in and around Coimbatore district.
Distribution of sample for the present study:

Analysis And Interpretation Of The Data
The data after collection has to be processed and analyzed in accordance with the outline laid down for the purpose at the time of developing research plan.The term processing implies editing, coding, classification and tabulation of collected data so that they are manageable for analysis.The term analysis refers to the computation of certain measures along with searching for patterns relationships thatbexisting among data groups ( Kothari, 1990 ). Interpretation refers to the task of drawing inferences from the collected facts after an analytical or experimental study. Interpretation leads to the establishment of explanatory concepts that can serve as guide for future research studies;it opens new avenues of intellectual adventure and stimulates the quest for more knowledge -Kothari (  2006 ) The percentage analysis of functional skills and social skill among visually impaired students was done by the investigator and corroborated under the following headings.

Age Of Selected Students
The percentage analysis of selected students with regard to their age groups was calculated in the following table.

Gender Of Selected Students
The percentage analysis of selected students with regard to their gender was calculated and presented in the following table. It can be said from the above table that majority of them (65 percentage) were visually impaired boys and 35 percentage were visually impaired girls.

Nature Of Selected Students
The percentage analysis of selected students with regard to their nature was calculated and presented in the following table. 100.0 From the above table it can be discussed that 67.5 percentages were low vision and 32.5 percentages of students were totally blind. Majority of the sample were low vision students.

Comparison Of Functional Skills Of Visually Impaired Children Based On Their Age
The T-test was applied to find out whether there is significant difference among the group in the average Functional skill scores.

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Comparison Of Functional Skills Of Visually Impaired Children Based On Their Age Table 5:-

NS-Not Significant
The above table shows that the calculated T -value 0.000 which is lesser than the table value of 2.024 at 5 % level of significance. Since the calculated value is lesser than the table value it is inferred that there is no significant difference among the age groups in the average scores. Hence the hypothesis is accepted.

Comparison Of Functional Skills Of Visually Impaired Children Based On Their Gender
The T-test was applied to find out whether there is significant difference among the group in the average Functional skill scores. Hence the hypothesis is accepted.

Comparison Of Functional Skills Of Students Based On Their Nature
The T-test was applied to find out whether there is significant difference among the group in the average Functional skill scores tabulated and represented graphically in fig.7. The above table shows that the calculated T -value 2.049 which is higher than the table value of 2.024 at 5 % level of significance. Since the calculated value is higher than the table value it is inferred that there is significant difference between totally blind and low vision children in the average scores. Hence the hypothesis is rejected. From the table it is inferred that totally blind showed independency in achieving Functional skills.

Summary And Conclusions:-
The findings of the study are as follows 1. By viewing the background information of students, it was found that both visually impaired boys and visually impaired girls were in equal percentage. (20 %). 2. It was found that majority of them 65 % were visually impaired boys and 35 % were visually impaired girls.