Supporting the Wellbeing of Children with Special Needs through Strength Based Curriculum

Abstract

Singapore’s Ministry of Social and Family Development’s definition of “persons with disability” are those with physical and mental impairments, therefore resulting in reduced opportunities towards a higher quality of life in terms of education, employment, and recreation (MSF, 2023). This identification of a disability is rooted on the affliction rather than the person. Mental health approaches have traditionally followed a linear deficit approach pathway as well, with the prescription that the termination of problems would in default result in a healthy state of mental health (Torres, 2021) and past policies and efforts were made to mitigate the affliction, in the view that the quality of life will improve in the absence of mental illness or the reduction of disability. Therefore, such endeavours on rehabilitation thrusts need to be revisited and revised, to accommodate the broader context children with special needs are part of. The present literature review seeks to explore the relationship of strength-based approaches on three variables, namely, self-esteem, self-concept and self-perception and its effect on overall well-being. These two variables were selected for two reasons. The first being their centrality to theories of positive psychology and have been long explored as indictors of wellbeing and scholastic levels (Baumeister, 2003). Second, these variables seem to have good predictable validity of self-views (Swann et al., 2007).