Chapter II

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

This chapter contains the literature and studies that support the

development of the study that explored the challenges of children with special

needs who are in seclusion.

Conceptual Framework

The conceptual framework of this study is shown in figure 1. It illustrates the

relationship of the variables which are the reasons for secluding children with

special needs, their personal and social life, their characteristics and behavior,

their family and peer relationship and the effects of seclusion to the child’s growth

and development. The study was anchored to the concept that the child’s social

development refers to ways in which children grow in terms of their social skills,

awareness of others, cooperative behaviours and ways of approaching and

interacting with others (Salkind & Rasmussen, 2008). According to the social

learning theory proposed by Albert Bandura (1977) as cited by Salkind and

Rasmussen (2008), said that learning is based on cognitive, social interaction, self-

regulatory and self- reflective capabilities. Social learning theory postulates that

individuals learn to function in a social context based on observing and learning

from others (Field, Kolbert, Crothers & Hughes, 2009). When individuals in the

immediate environment are reinforced for their behavior, an observing individual is

more likely to emulate that behavior.

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 Reasons for Seclusion

Children with Special
 Personal and Social Life
Needs who are in
 Behavior and Characteristics
Seclusion
 Effects of seclusion in the

child’s development

 Family Relationship

 Peer Relationship

Figure 1. Conceptual Framework

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Additionally, individuals who model their behavior after others in the

environment are more likely to be accepted by their peers because they are acting

in a predictable manner, using the behavior that others use. Finally, significant

adults, including mothers, aunts, grandmothers, may have created the original

training ground for social and relational aggression within a family. Some girls,

observing the influential women in their lives, may have learned that they are not

to be open about discussing conflicts with other people.

Related Literature

Children with special needs are usually those who are rejected and are

being subjected to maltreatment (Brockman, 2013). Few people realized that these

children, though sent to school, were still left behind and are prone to social

neglect. Having friends are very essential in all walks of life, how much more to

children with special needs for it helps them enhance their potentials and

competencies (Raney, 2015). It can be a stepping stone in developing necessary

competencies to be learned such as communication, cognitive and emotion

regulation and understanding.

Social Competence

Social competence is a composite skills, each of which has many

dimensions (Noonan & McCornick, 2014). Compared to competence in other skill

areas, social competence seems to be an evaluative term and is based on

subjective judgements by significant social agents rather that objective

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observations, however, at the very least, most agree that it is the ability to be

effective and appropriate in human interaction and relationships. More specifically,

social competence includes the ability to use appropriate and effective social

strategies to gain entry to a peer group, resolve conflicts, maintain play interactions

and initiate, develop and maintain friendships. Additionally, it includes such

communication skills as joint attention, symbol use and turn taking.

As the child take his or her journey of becoming an adolescent, it is

necessary to build relationship outside the household (Salkind & Rasmussen,

2008) for these children needs a wider scope in meeting people and understanding

the truths about life. However, there are these children who were not able to

successfully make friends and they are commonly the children with special needs.

Families having children with special needs usually seclude them from the outside

world. As Brockman (2013) says, seclusion is the involuntary confinement of a

child alone in an area from which the child is prevented from leaving. Therefore,

these children do not have the control over their lives for even though they wanted

to learn more about the world, seclusion is preventing them to do so. On the other

hand, these children are also suffering from restraint, wherein these actions

prevent the child from doing something (Brockman, 2013). Restraint may fall into

three (3) categories – physical, mechanical and chemical. Physical restraint

includes personal restriction that immobilizes or reduces the ability of the child to

move his or her chest, arms and legs, and head freely. Mechanical restraint is the

use of any device of equipment to restrict a child from moving such as chains,

tapes and etc. Lastly, chemical restraint in which a person uses substance to
 11

control a child’s behaviour or restrict them from moving (Brockman, 2013).children

with special needs are the ones who are usually the victim of seclusion and

restraint, together with other children with problematic behavior.

Seclusion and Restraint

These seclusion and restraint could affect the child’s social, mental, and

emotional growth and development. It can most likely destroy them from being and

experiencing what other normal children can do with enough freedom. In fact, they

needed it more for they demand so much from the people around them because

they think of themselves as incomplete. This doesn’t only happens to children with

special needs but also to normal children who exhibits undesirable behavior.

Children with special needs are at greater risk of social rejection and

isolation (Wilson, 2003). Isolation tends to cause harm to a child’s social

development (Blakesly, 2012). It affects the child’s language, social cues,

emotions, self- image and self- esteem. This instances leads them to poor social

skills.

The development of positive social relationship with peers is an important

developmental achievement. Typically, social interaction increases and

relationships become more stable as children grow older. Thus, social isolation

may represent a significant deviation in social development (Reynolds, Vannest &

Janzen, 2014). Isolated children might find it strenuous to communicate with other

children knowing the fact that the child was being left all alone in a certain corner

away from people whom they can mingle with. Blakesly (2012) also stated that
 12

children who are isolated or isolates do not know how to communicate their

feelings and needs. These children are less playful and less responsive to the

environment and worst, they often develop disturbing and destructive behaviour

(Moutria, 2015). Their sensory and social deprivation caused them to be severely

delayed in language acquisition, putting them at risk for being permanently socially

disturbed knowing that people around them could not attend all their needs and

wants.

Social Life of Secluded Children

These children with special needs do not only suffer from seclusion,

restraint and isolation, but also they experience emotional abuse almost all of the

time. It refers to the psychological maltreatment to a child (American Humane

Association Contributors, 2013). This includes rejecting in which caregivers

consistently prevents the child from having normal social interactions with peers,

family members and adults. It also includes exploiting or corrupting in which the

child is taught, encouraged or forced to develop inappropriate and illegal behaviors

such as teaching the child to steal. Verbal assault is also included wherein it

involves constant belittling, shaming, ridiculing and verbally. Terrorizing is also one

way of psychologically maltreating a child. It is where parents or caregivers are

threatening the child or bullying them. It also includes putting the child’s loved one,

a sibling or a toy, into harmful and chaotic situation or placing rigid or unrealistic

expectations on a child with threats or harm if they are not met. Lastly, the type of

emotional abuse includes neglecting. It may be educational neglect where a parent

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of caregiver fails to provide the child with necessary educational needs and

services. It can also be mental health neglect, where parent or caregiver denies or

ignores the child’s need for treatment for psychological problems. And it can also

be a medical neglect in which parent or caregiver denies or ignores a child’s need

for treatment for medical problems (American Humane Association Contributors,

2013). These actions worsen the condition of the child especially those with special

needs.

Interventions for disruptive behaviours often include parent management

training and behavioural intervention along with social skills training (Ozdemir,

2010). Various training program exist but all strive to promote more positive,

compliant and generally pro-social behaviour while decreasing negative, defiant

and disruptive behaviour in children. These program generally focus on peer

relationship, classroom conduct and school achievement. One of the most widely

used psychosocial interventions that directly targets peer relationship of rejected

and neglected children. It is based on the social skills deficit model, which posits

that a child’s lack of social skills results in less positive peer interactions and lower

social status.

Study also shows that children who suffer severe neglect and isolation have

cognitive and social impairments as adults (Makinodan, 2012). Children who are

isolated have no mechanism for developing and communicating thoughts that is

why they suffer from being socially avoided by people around them to be left all

alone by their friends and peers. It affects greatly their social interaction with others
 14

for when they experience neglect once or twice, soon enough they will not push

themselves to mingle and interact with others from then on.

Social Withdrawal

Children with special needs could also develop a social withdrawal behavior

which is a result of physical and emotional separation. Children who are socially

withdrawn or isolated are distinguished by their lack of appropriate social

interaction, failure to get satisfaction from social reciprocity and preference for

solitary moments and play (Rosenberg, Wilson, Maheady & Sindelar, 1997). The

fundamental problem of social isolation is dysfunction in social and interpersonal

relationships due to behavioral deficiency or excesses. This causes the child to

avoid, or fail in, interaction with others and inhibits the growth of normal social

relationship with peers and other children.

Antisocial Behavior

Children may also create an antisocial behavior. It is defined by Walker, Hill,

Colvin and Ramsey (1995), as recurrent violations of socially prescribed patterns

of behavior. It is being hostile to others, aggressiveness, willingness to commit rule

infraction, defiance of authority and violations of social norms. These

characteristics are usually found to those children who are socially isolated,

restrained and neglected.

Children with special needs are victims of discrimination that is why they

tend to exhibit antisocial behavior. Discrimination may be blatant or subtle in form,

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intentional or unintentional. It may include obvious act of aggression, social

exclusion, differences in the allocation of valued resources or subtle acts of

condescension. Due to this, children with special needs responded it with being

antisocial to avoid the problem in getting worse.

Also, these children are victims of bullying. It is defines as consistent,

purposeful negative behaviour that is directed toward another individual or the

persistent abuse of power, which is perpetuated by children and adolescents

against their more vulnerable peers (Salkind & Rasmussen, 2008). Due to this kind

of acts, children with special needs exclude themselves from the group and feel

safer when they are alone than when they are with their group.

Parents Responsibility

Parents, however, has a lot to do with this. In fact, Family influence affects

the child’s behaviour greatly for it is the family who has direct contact with the child

(Salkind & Rasmussen, 2008). It is their responsibility to control and correct their

child’s behaviour. They will be held liable to what patterns of behaviour their child

with special needs are exhibiting. Parental involvement has long been recognized

to play necessary role in the child’s social development. It is proven that when

parents support their child performs optimally (Reynolds, et al., 2014). Though

being a parent of a child with special needs may contribute to marital tension and

stress in many families. Also, depression can negatively affect a mother’s ability to

meet a child’s basic needs for nutrition and safety concerns that are even more

serious when a child has a significant health problem or disability (Azzi-Lessing,

 16

2010). Moreover, depressed mothers are less emotionally available to their

children. This lack of responsiveness may harm mother- child relationship, may

lead to problems with attachment and emotional self- regulation as the child

develops and may place children at greater risk for becoming depressed

themselves. Mothers who are experiencing depressive symptoms are often more

vulnerable to other risk factors, including abusing drugs and alcohol of being

victimized by domestic violence.

It should not hinder the support, guidance, love and care to the child with

special needs who did not chose to become a problem to the family and the

community as a whole. In some instances, divorce and marital difficulties are

common adjustment problems, however, in other families, marriages are

strengthened (Gargiulo, 2015). In fact, investigators found no difference in divorce

rates between families with and without children with special needs. It is true that

not all parents can accept their children who have disabilities, but this does not

mean it cuts out parent’s responsibility as parents. Instead, it results in significantly

greater stress for both parents and the children; it would be false to conclude that

marital deterioration is caused by having a child with special needs.

The effect on the family of a child with disability mainly involves perceptions

and feelings that are highly subjective and personalized for each family member.

How a mother response differ from the response of the father-in-law, siblings, and

any other family member. They have different point of view. Likewise, the

exceptionality is frequently interpreted differently by different families even the

disability is just the same. In some families, having a child with disability is
 17

perceives as tragedy, while in some others, it is a crisis but it can be managed and

worst, for some, it is a daily struggle to survive.

Related Studies

Vogell (2014) conducted a case study of a 10-year old child named Carson,

who was locked up in a room with cinder walls, dim light and a noisy fan up above

the ceiling that rattled so insistently that is why Carson is begging them to turn it

off. The thick metal door with lock separated Carson from the rest of the decrepit

building in Chesapeake, Virginia. One day, on March 2011, the child panicked

when the family suggested to confine him in the hospital; and thereafter, he had

an outburst. He lashed out, hitting, scratching and hurling his shoes. The staff used

physical restraint and held him down the wall and attempted to lock him in again,

but this time, the effort went wrong. The staff, then, crushed Carson’s hand while

trying to slam the door. Due to the deep wound which exposed his bone, it needs

to be operated by the surgeon.

Another study shows the prevalence of preschoolers being maltreated.

Preschool children are at risk of serious injuries due to physical child abuse. Ewing-

Cobbs and others (1998) found 45% of children surviving brain injury resulting from

violence to be mentally retarded compared to only 5% of those surviving accidental

injury. Sege et.al (2000) reported almost 11% of all brain injury to children five

years old and under resulted from battery, shaking and other forms of violence.

Shaken baby syndrome, a vigorous manual shaking of infant who is being held

under the arms or by shoulders, can result in the child’s brain moving within the
 18

skill, causing blood vessel to stretch and tear with no obvious external signs of

injury and may cause death, permanent brain damage or long term disability. In

fact about 60% of infants who survived it will have severe disabilities and most of

the remaining survivors will have milder disabilities.

Another study conducted by Mohr, Lebel, O’Halloran and Preustch (2010)

in 1999, the United States General Accountability Office investigated restraint and

seclusion use in mental health setting and found patterns of misuse and abuse. A

decade later, same misuse is found in the school setting. Restraint and seclusion

are traumatizing and dangerous procedure that caused injury and death. In the

past decade, these two have gone from being considered as essential part of the

psychiatric mental health toolkit to being viewed as a symptom of treatment failure.

In most mental health settings, the use of these has plummeted due to federal

regulations, staff education and concerted effort of psychiatric national and local

leadership.

Both seclusion and restraint are reactive procedures that tend to be used

when teachers or other caregivers do not know what else to do. They are

associated with a number of significant problems, and, therefore, it is vital to

understand and implement approaches for maintaining a positive and orderly

environment in which is pro-social, desirable behaviors are encouraged and

challenging behaviors are minimized (Dunlap, Ostrya & Fox, 2011).

These studies just show how harmful restraint and seclusion was. In the

near future, not only the government and those other sectors relation to children

with special needs must not be the only one to contribute change regarding this
 19

issue, instead all people in the community should show support in any kind.

Children who are secluded may encounter social relationship problems.

In United States of America, time-out procedure offer teachers three level

of behavioral interventions. One is recommended as a safely procedure and the

other one is an often-natural consequence used to reduce disruptive behaviors.

They consist of isolation in time-out booth (seclusion room), removal from the main

body of students and remaining in the group while being unable the same

reinforces as the other student. However, some researchers describe it as “a

controversial procedure prove to abuse” (Torem, 2000).

Over the past several years, allegations of abuse and death related to

seclusion and restraint, media coverage of these events, subsequent federal law

investigation, and congressional hearings about the topic have resulted increased

pressure on congress to pass legislation to address the use of seclusion and

restraint in school setting. Currently there are two pieces of federal legislation that

are intended to regulate state and local policy regarding seclusion and restraints,

and the U.S Department of Education recently released a resource document

related to the issue. Although the National Association of School Psychologist

(NASP) does not have a formal position regarding seclusion and restraints, the

association actively promotes the se of preventive measures and positive

behavioral supports with all students.

This circumstance happened in USA because the government legalized the

use of physical and mechanical restraint to children with behavioral problems to

be able to protect other children from getting hurt. Though their intention was good
 20

but it is brutal for the children who, in nature behave differently, to be also hurt in

times of tantrums being thrown. As to what Brockman (2013) stated in his article,

it is physical restraint and is harmful to children with special needs. It will cause

them to develop social withdrawal and antisocial behavior that would make things

even worst.

It is uncertain if there exist a direct effect of problematic peer relations on

depressive symptoms (Witvliet et al., 2010). Rather, it has been theorized that poor

experiences with peers likely evoke emotional responses such as loneliness and

cognitive reactions including poor self-esteem. These cognitive emotional

constructs are expected to underlie depressive symptoms.

Depression can negatively affect a mother’s ability to meet a child’s basic

needs for nutrition and safety concerns that are even more serious when a child

has a significant health problem and disability. Moreover, depressed mothers are

less emotionally available to their children. This lack of responsiveness may harm

mother-child relationships, may lead to problems with attachments and emotional

self-regulation as the child develops and may place children at greater risk for

becoming depressed themselves. Mothers who are experiencing depressive

symptoms are often more vulnerable to other risk factors, including abusing drugs

and alcohol or being victimized by domestic violence.

Professionals are becoming more concerned about fathers’ needs and

demand their participation in service delivery. Research found that fathers and

mothers respond to each other. Fathers are less emotional tend to emphasize on
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a long term result. Fathers’ treatment towards this child with a disability is very

influential; it may affect the attitude of other members in the family.

Women are the ones responsible for raising the child, even though more

are presently taking over greater child care duties. However, mothers are most

affected, experiencing stress, tensions and extra requirements entailed by

difficulties of having a child with exceptionality.

The impact of a sibling with disability to the relationship is always affected

by different seasons. Siblings also undergo various stages of responses that are

influenced by how parents expect and treat the other child, socio-economic, states,

severity and type of disability, size of family, sibling genders, age spacing, and

child raising practices, cultural background and the supports available. Let us not

forget that while the child with disability affects his other sibling, this brother or

sister also has a negative or positive impact on the sibling with disability.