February is Turner Syndrome Awareness Month. It is a rare disease that occurs in between one and 2,000 birth only affecting females. Turner Syndrome has several names including Ullrich-Turner Syndrome, Bonnevie-Ullrich-Turner Syndrome. gonadal dysgenesis and 45X. This rare disease is the result of the absence of one set of genes from the short arm of one X chromosome.
Special Needs Challenges
While girls and women with Turner Syndrome usually have normal intelligence, there is a risk of learning disabilities involving spatial concepts including math and memory and ADHD
Teaching Strategies:
Young girls diagnosed with Turner Syndrome during their early development may have delays in learning the alphabet, speech, difficulty in following one command at a time and conceptual difficulties such as up and down. Signs and symptoms of math or dyscalculia challenges include difficulty with counting money, estimating time, losing track when counting and remembering phone numbers or zip codes. The following strategies should be used when teaching students diagnosed with Turner Syndrome:
- Use flashcards to aid in memory as well as workbooks, games and video’s.
- Break learning into smaller steps by using a task analysis framework.
- Administer probing and feedback as a check in
- Model instructional practices
- Provide prompts
- Use visuals such as diagrams, graphics and pictures.
- Give clear directions
- Use multiple models including visual and auditory learning models
- Make sure directions are clear
- Allow time to process and take notes
Very interesting, Turner syndrome,https://fdna.health/syndromes/turner-syndrome/, affects only females. 1 in every 2,000 females born is diagnosed with the syndrome.
This rare disease is characterized by a short stature, heart defects and a failure of the reproductive organs, specifically the ovaries to develop.
In some instances the syndrome is not diagnosed until puberty when these symptoms become apparent.