Loving Our Special Children

1.. Mental Retardation or MR: this usually refers to those students who have both a significantly lower IQ - (100 is average - MR is 69 or below) AND has significant delays in adaptive skills as indicated through an evaluation.

2. Hearing Impairments (including deafness): this is fairly straight forward and describes those impairments that affect the students ability to hear the spoken word and other sounds.

3. Speech or Language impairments: this actually addresses two very distinct problems. First, speech impairments generally refer to impairments in the ability to produce language or sound required for language. This is often referred to articulation or "artic". Other speech issues may include the movement of the tongue and mouth and throat muscles - oral motor skills.

4. Visual Impairments (including blindness): this category refers to those students who have impairments that limit their ability to see.

5. Serious Emotional Disturbance (hereinafter referred to as emotional disturbance') means a condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child's educational performance:

(a) An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.
(b) An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.
(c) Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances.
(d) A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
(e) A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

6. Autism: this disability can also include the Pervasive Developmental Delays or PDD's associated with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Autism generally affects communication, social interaction and behavioral (routines, specific and/or unusual interests, abnormal behavior such as flapping, spinning or swinging).

7. Traumatic brain injury or TBI: refers to injuries to the brain that occur after birth, usually caused by an accident, incident or sometimes by medical interventions for tumors, cancers or other illnesses.

8. Orthopedic Impairments (Physical Impairments): this refers to physical disabilities that may affect the student's ability to be mobile, use arms, legs or hands. Cerebral Palsy and Muscular Dystrophy are just two disorders that are found under this category.

9. Other Health Impairments: this includes those health issues that significantly impact student functioning such as ADHD, swallowing difficulties, use of respirator or other medical equipment etc.

10. Specific Learning Disabilities (SLD): there are currently seven areas of learning disabilities: basic reading, reading comprehension, math calculation, math reasoning, written expression, oral expression and listening comprehension.

11. Developmental delay: this is when a child between the ages of 3 and 9, exhibits developmental delays in one or more of the following areas: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development.

This is just a quick note about teaching our special children. Details on how to handle each of their behaviors could be found in books that are offered above or from the internet. Sources could also be read from your local libraries or book stores.

In many cases, it has been observed that children with various learning disabilities are not confident enough and have an inferiority complex. At this point, it is the duty of the teachers or the adults at home to teach them at their level of understanding. Teachers (or the adult at home) should totally stop comparing them constantly with other bright students. Few words of encouragement from the teachers can help to boost the morale and confidence of such students. Arranging for special classes for effectively teaching children with special needs is indeed a good idea. Make the teaching sessions as interactive as possible.

While teaching children with special needs, you should see to it that these children get plenty of opportunities to prove themselves. You should stand by them during their failures to make them feel that they have the ability to reach the level of the other students. Avoid criticizing them for their bad performances in front of other students. Whenever these children do well, you should take notice of their performance. Give them suitable awards, certificates and prizes to encourage and motivate them. It is only through constant motivation that these children will succeed in future.