Special educators or teachers tasked with teaching students with learning disabilities have quite a job on their hands as their responsibility is more than a regular subject teacher.
“Our first step is to identify what type of learning disability the child has and whether or not they display symptoms of learning disability (LD) at all,” said Mina Agarwal, a remedial teacher for children with learning disabilities.
She also runs a therapy centre for children on the autism spectrum.
“Be it dyscalculia, dysgraphia, dyslexia, nonverbal learning disabilities or anything else, these children need a different approach that focuses on developing those faculties better,” she explained. Dyscalculia is the inability to solve mathematical calculations, Dysgraphia is the inability to write coherently while Dyslexia is a learning difficulty.
“Big, reputed schools have a special educator and counsellor on their staff. But many schools still don’t have them, and some are even reluctant to admit children with special needs in their school because as per the National Education Policy (NEP 2020) they must hire teachers as well,” said Agarwal.
Currently, while some schools employ a special educator and counsellor on their staff, many just bring a special educator on board as a consultant, or refer the students to establishments meant for children with LD.
“Ideally, every school faculty should have such staff members on board so that accessing special education does not depend on the level of privilege rather on their needs,” said Agarwal. Some others like The Millennium School have provision for ‘shadow teachers’. “Although we believe in inclusive education, we do have ‘shadow teachers’ who are assigned to children requiring constant attention,” said Majula Goswami, principal, The Millennium School.
{{/usCountry}}“Ideally, every school faculty should have such staff members on board so that accessing special education does not depend on the level of privilege rather on their needs,” said Agarwal. Some others like The Millennium School have provision for ‘shadow teachers’. “Although we believe in inclusive education, we do have ‘shadow teachers’ who are assigned to children requiring constant attention,” said Majula Goswami, principal, The Millennium School.
{{/usCountry}}Agarwal agrees that the awareness about the need for special educators is increasing but feels there is still a lot of change to be seen within educational institutions. She cited Jaipuria, La Martiniere and Study Hall, which are among those schools who employ special educators, either regular or part time.
She said the biggest challenge is when children are written off as having attention deficit disorders or autism when in-fact they are children with symptoms of LD, which ought to be handled differently.
“Sometimes you must remove the heavy writing component from the child’s curriculum due to their inability to understand the alphabet or numbers visually. That’s because this does not always translate to difficulty in reading or solving mathematical problems. Each child has to be taught through an approach best suited to their needs. Some children after a few years of therapy no longer retain their LD symptoms,” she said.
Nimisha Arya, a special educator in the city, said the most important quality in a special educator is patience. “You have to be very patient as a special educator, because the children are least concerned about your temper or energy levels,” she said. Arya also has a 15-year-old son on the autism spectrum. “We have to be innovative in how we tackle different types of LD in students,” she said.
“For instance, the alphabets ‘p’ and ‘q’ and the number ‘9’ are difficult for children with dysgraphia to differentiate and we employ props or visual prompts to make them accustomed to their usages,” she explained. She said that the needs of children far surpass academia and go well into behavioural social practices.