The awareness of child development and the approach towards disabilities, delays and disorders in childhood have drastically changed over the last few decades. Perhaps a decade ago, parents would deny or be ashamed of their child’s cognitive, socio-emotional and physical concerns; however, today, parents have come together to build an acceptable community for their children with special needs, where they are supported by doctors, developmental psychologists and educators to create the most enriching environment for their families.
A “child with special needs” may refer to any child who may show signs of physical, developmental, behavioral, social and emotional disability or severe delay. These may include children diagnosed with Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, learning disabilities such as Dyslexia or those with sensory impairments such as blindness, deafness and others.
There is sufficient research and literature to provide evidence for these children’s unique abilities; not all children with special needs have poor IQs or the inability to learn. Many children diagnosed with any of the aforementioned disabilities are high-functioning children and adults, and grow up to become celebrated public figures. However, the stigma surrounding these children within mainstream education is still prevalent in both urban and rural Indian cities.
While these children can and should be given the right to be integrated into formal mainstream schools (because every child has the right to receive an equal opportunity for education), most schools are not equipped to do justice to these children and their special needs. Most Indian schools have an average class size of 40 students, where an Individualized Education Plan may not be effectively implemented. Many teachers may lack the training to aid these children, and thus, schools must employ extra teachers for remedial support.
It is vital in my opinion for the administrators to consider when integrating children with special needs into regular schools?
- Properly trained teaching staff: One of the challenges of enrolling special needs children in mainstream schools is that the teacher in charge of the class may lack proper special education training. Such training is required to enable him or her to empathize with and deal with its issues.
- The child’s readiness: When a youngster is not developmentally mature, it is not a good idea to integrate him into a mainstream school. This holds true on a mental, emotional, and academic level. The school should only integrate students after determining their degree of preparation because there are physical challenges involved.
- Breaks/Recess/Lunch: When they are unsupervised during breaks, special needs children are more likely to encounter challenging circumstances. They could wander off or get into unintentional fights with other kids. Children with autism spectrum disorders may also have trouble blocking out the sounds of lunchtime. Keeping children busy during these pauses is the greatest method to deal with these issues. During breaks, the autistic student in my literary class frequently came to me for piano lessons. He kept himself productively occupied.
- Writing exercises/assignments: For written assignments, children with particular needs will require additional time. This is particularly true in cases where language assignments or testing is involved. As per my recommendation, children with special needs can get an extra 30 minutes to finish their tests and homework. Many occasions it has been observed that one or two of them really performed better academically than their mainstream peers. Researches have shown that these special children do wonderfully well in regular school learning through computers.
Including special needs children in a mainstream classroom benefits all students socially, emotionally, and academically. It comes with challenges, but patience and effort make it a fulfilling process.
Dr. Jinal Joshi