Teaching Children with Learning Disabilities
- Topics: Education
- Pages: 2
- Words: 531
- Date added: May 29, 2020
It used to be that public education was tailored to the majority, and in some parts of the world it still is. But in a lot of big countries now learning is more custom-made for the student’s needs, which really helps change the whole course of their life! There are so many stories out there about children with mental or physical disabilities that doctors and therapists will say to their parents that they shouldn’t bother going to school or trying to learn the alphabet or anything, because they aren’t going anywhere. These stories about parents that don’t give up on their children are so inspiring and fascinating, because they grow up to do so many great things.
Take for instance, Jake Barnett, who was diagnosed as an infant with profoundly disabling autism. Everyone said he’d never learn anything, and never even know how to tie his shoes or talk normally. That is, everyone except for his mother. She nurtured and encouraged him, and now at age 14 he is a college student in math and physics, half the age of most of the other students, and also tutors a lot of them in his spare time! He’s been named in articles such as “Five Kids Who are Smarter than Albert Einstein.”
Jake’s mother, Kristine, has written a book about their journey together about nurturing her genius son. Her underlying principles in this book include how she took Jake out of special education where “experts” where trying to keep him focused on things he couldn’t do, and stopping him from doing the things he could, like distractions of shadows and patterns that caught his attention. Despite everyone’s opposite opinions, his mother took her child nearly lost to his disability and helped him show the world how beautiful his mind was.
How to Take Care of Physically Disabled Children
Often, whether their child is disabled or not, parents show too much babying instead of nurturing, and there’s actually a big difference. Another problem along with teaching children with learning disabilities is that the parents pity their child or feel bad for them, which is completely the opposite of what the child needs to grow. Always keep a strong relationship with your child; staying close to them will help them, like all children they yearn for their parents’ love.
Whatever their condition may be, parents need to teach their child to take care of themselves and be independent, working around whatever problems they may have. They’re still human and they still need to be self-sufficient on their own terms.
Help your child see the bigger picture. Of course when children are young they’ll realize they have a disability, that they’re different and somehow missing out on what other children experience. To make sure they don’t have low self-esteem or get depressed, when teaching children with learning disabilities, allow them to look past their condition and that it’s only as bad as the child makes it; with a positive attitude and encouragement from loved ones, they can turn their own life around and inspire others to do the same.