APPROACHES TEACHERS USE IN TEACHING DAILY LIVING SKILLS TO PUPILS WITH VISUAL IMPAIRMENT AT AKROPONG SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND IN THE EASTERN REGION OF GHANA

ABSTRACT  

The purpose of the study was to find out the approaches teachers use to teach daily living skills to pupils with visual impairments at Akropong School for the Blind. The study was mainly qualitative and adopted a case study design. The study used   purposive sampling technique and semi-structured interview guide to gather data from 10 participants. The findings revealed that hand-over-hand technique; hand-under-hand method, and peer tutoring were approaches teachers used to teach daily living skills to the pupils. Teachers mainly concentrated on three areas of daily living skills which included personal care skills, housekeeping skills and home management skills. Additionally, teachers made use of tactile learning materials, visual learning materials and few auditory learning materials as ways of adapting the daily living skills for the pupils. The results of the study revealed challenges teachers face in teaching of daily living skills which included, inadequate provision of teaching and learning materials, and lack of fine motor skills and poor teacher-pupil ratio. Views of pupils with visual impairments were also sampled.  The researcher further recommended that, the school must include the areas of the daily living skills in the school curriculum; teachers should make use of other approaches such as one-on-one teaching, teacher-directed approach and group learning. Again, teachers should make intensive adaptations to the environments and teaching and learning materials. Finally, adaptation must be made to the environment and the materials available. Also, the school administration should provide intensive training opportunities to teachers in the area of daily living skills in other to reduce the challenges.