Learning Styles: Children With Special Needs And Learning Style

III. Children with special needs and Learning Style

Children with special needs are children who have been determined to require special attention and specific necessities that other children do not (Investopedia, 2015). People with autism, Down syndrome, dyslexia, blindness, or cystic fibrosis, for example, may be considered to have special needs.

Learning styles are defined as educational conditions under which a student is most likely to learn (Stewart & Felicetti, 1992). Therefore, learning styles do not really concern with what learners learn, but how they prefer to learn. Different types of learning styles are studied and practices in order to help reach out to children that have different learning style preferences. The wider the

Many researchers have discussed the benefit of using multimedia technologies and courseware as a help for disabled children (Khan et al., 2015). Providing learning styles such as computer games, websites, or a desktop application can attract the attention of children with learning difficulties, especially when they include techniques such as repetitive and rapid feedback (Khan et al., 2015). Furthermore, by importing interactivity and multimedia elements such as sounds, text, and pictures, children learning skills in reading, writing and communicating can be affected (Khan et al., 2015). Recently, several multimedia systems have been developed to serve special needs children such as children with dyslexia. The traditional way of learning is not to be considered as irrelevant, but a new approach is needed to give a better result in special education achievement (Zhang, Zhou, Briggs, & Nunamaker,

Apart from being considered as necessary in learning, mobile learning is considered as a new type of learning that refers to the use of wireless mobile communication devices such as mobile phones to access educational information, resources and services Fen and Cheng (2010). The learning content such as graphics, animation, and sound is used in order to illustrate the learning content that is suitable for developing mobile learning. Mobile learning has grown its visibility and significance in higher education (Traxler, 2009; Sharples et al., 2005). Recently, mobile learning has exploited both handheld computers and mobile telephones, not to mention other devices that draw on the same set of functionalities. One of the key benefits of using mobile in learning is learners are able to study ‘‘on the move’’ (Evans, 2007). Learners can access their learning anywhere they go without restriction. In fact, they don’t even need internet connectivity to access the learning material compared to e-learning