Special Education Therapy
Special Education Therapy
Special education is an umbrella term that includes different specialists, resources, techniques, teaching aids, accommodations and modifications that help a special child learn. Special education refers to a range of services that can be provided in different ways and in different settings. There’s no “one size fits all” approach to special education. It’s tailored to meet the needs of students with special needs. The services and supports for one student may be very different from those of another student. It’s all about the individual child and giving them the resources they need to make progress both in schools and in one to one settings.
We, at Crafting Lives, work with children with varying special needs like Autism, ADHD, Downs Syndrome, Mental Retardation, Mixed Disabilities, Slow learners and learning disabilities. In all these special needs, we require special education inputs. There are specialized therapists for this purpose. They are professionally trained in teaching special needs children (Rehabilitation Council of India- RCI recognized).
Special Education starts as early as 1.5 years of age, where the major inputs are understanding the environment using various senses (Multisensory approach). For instance, children between 1.5-5 years of age are encouraged to engage in different activities to work on different domains of development. Some are described as follows:
Seating behaviour (able to sit with a variety of activities, waiting for an activity or a reinforcer, school readiness skills etc.)
Visual perception (puzzles, mazes, matching, sorting skills, eye hand coordination, visual tracking, pre-writing skills like scribbling and tracing)
Social interaction skills (Adapting to new environments, language skills, coping with school environment, social etiquettes, reciprocal interactions with peers)
Overcome learning challenges (improving focus, minimize distractions, following instructions, completing work at school, able to control impulses, able to learn new material)
Play skills (able to initiate play with others, understanding concepts of sharing and turn taking, engage in purposeful play and not wander aimlessly, engage in non-repetitive play, gets involved in pretend play with peers)
Learning concepts (using various multisensory approaches and TLMs- Teaching Learning Materials, children with special needs are made to learn pre-reading and prewriting concepts as well as general awareness like shapes, colours, fruits, opposites, adjectives, pairing together, same and different, categories, after- before, left- right, parts of home, our neighbourhood etc.) All these concepts form the base from which further development can take place. These are the foundation for complex language, verbal reasoning and logical skills.
Special Education Therapy addresses these skills and even more when we move to higher education. There are techniques provided to grasp Maths, English, Science concepts in the most desirable ways. In addition, we have guidance facilities for children who are opting for NIOS examination (National Institute of Open Schooling). Many children with special needs have passed VI- XII with us both at school and NIOS levels.
