Why is special education Important?

Special education serves children with emotional, behavioural, or cognitive impairments or with intellectual, hearing, vision, speech, or learning disabilities. Special education allows the students to enjoy the education and gain confidence due to individual learning. For the personal growth and development of the special children, it is important for all of them to receive proper education. The disability cases could include emotional, mental, physical or developmental. Learning new things in an interesting way helps them develop. The intellect of the children goes through elevation too. The cognitive development actually helps in this. The special needs education training programmes shape the children's development process in a well-designed way.

Put the relationship before academic rigor

Teachers have a certain number of instructional minutes and curriculum to get through, and we don’t want kids to fall behind academically, especially children who already may have lagging academic skills. So, the natural temptation is to focus on academics and compliance of academic tasks, even when our children are under the stress of social isolation and the pandemic. But stressed-out brains don’t learn well. According to few researchers, stressed out brain articulates information comparatively slower than a normal brain. Students struggle when school education moves too quickly. When Student’s social and emotional needs are taken into consideration, they tend to process information and ideas faster and they cope better Connection is Protection.

Get creative with accommodations and supports

Many students with special needs have challenges with independent learning. They often need specialized instruction and more scaffolded support, such as having tasks broken down for them into more manageable chunks, visual aids, and frequent check-ins to ensure they are on the right track. Convenient strategy for students who have disabilities that affect their attention or emotional self-regulation is to provide online spaces to bring stressed-out students’ brains back to the “calm zone” for learning.

Team collaboration

One of the challenges for students with special needs is that their support is more disjointed and remote. This is why building out a team of support is even more critical than ever before. Whether or not students with disabilities have a formal plan in place, such as a 504-accommodation plan or an Individual Education Plan (IEP) in special education, collaboration among other educators, support staff, and especially parents are the key. Most importantly though, connect with the parents! Parents are doing the best they can with the tools and skills they have at home, under stressful circumstances. When educators partner with parents, especially now, when the parent is the primary source of support during the day, that’s where the real change can happen for our students.