Early School Years Fact Pack - Cerebral Palsy Alliance

early school years fact pack
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Learning Issues
A percentage of students including those with cerebral palsy may experience learning difficulties.
It is important to consider that some students presenting with disruptive or avoidance behaviours
and low self-esteem may have underlying learning problems. A student may show frustration as
differences often become more apparent at school.
Learning situations need to be structured to provide opportunities for students to increase their
self-esteem, sense of identity and belonging. Experiencing success increases the student’s
awareness of their own abilities and develops their bank of skills. Use the student’s interests and
strengths to encourage participation in activities.
The student may show difficulties in interacting with others, taking turns with peers or changing to a
new activity. It also may be hard for students to understand consequences of actions or words. A wellplanned,
consistent program will need to be implemented to assist behaviour changes for the student.
General learning issues
Learning may be affected by difficulties in fine motor and gross motor coordination and
communication.
Students with cerebral palsy need to put more effort into concentrating on their movements and
sequence of actions than others, so they may tire more easily.
It is important that concentrated activities in the day are broken up and that the student has times
to move and not stay in the same seated position for long periods of time.
Consideration should also be given to planning activities requiring a lot of walking e.g. when going
on excursions or to different areas of the school, as these may cause the student to fatigue and
then be unable to concentrate on later activities.
Fine motor / coordination
Difficulty with hand control may affect a student’s abilities with handwriting, cutting, pasting or
cooking activities. When handwriting, the student may be unable to keep the paper steady, set out
work or complete work within a specific time.
It is important to evaluate what the student needs e.g. adapting equipment, assessing fine motor
abilities. Refer to Learning to Write, Ideas for Adapting Equipment and Using Technology fact
sheets for more details.
Gross motor skills
Students will have varying degrees of difficulty with movement and postural control that may affect
their ability when sitting or moving around the classroom.
If it takes too much effort the student may tire easily.
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