Mainstream classrooms provide many benefits for kids with special needs, including access to grade-level curriculum and nondisabled peers. However, these inclusive environments also come with unique academic challenges that can impact learning. While special education aims to eliminate barriers, additional accommodations and support are often needed for students with disabilities to thrive scholastically alongside their typical peers.
Physical Barriers
For students with physical disabilities, merely accessing the classroom space can be hindered by mobility and sensory issues. Desks, chairs, and tables may be physically restrictive or uncomfortable. Typical classroom layouts can make manoeuvring difficult for those with wheelchairs, walkers, or crutches. Displays and learning manipulatives may be out of reach. A deaf student may struggle to see the teacher signing or lack space for an interpreter. A classroom designed for able-bodied students can inadvertently exclude those with physical disabilities.
Cognitive Functioning
Students who have cognitive impairments like Down syndrome, foetal alcohol syndrome, or traumatic brain injury can face challenges with various academic skills. Weak executive functioning makes tasks like planning, organization, attention, inhibition, working memory and mental flexibility harder. Basic literacy and numeracy skills may develop at a slower pace. Those with intellectual disabilities may struggle with higher order tasks like critical thinking, drawing inferences, synthesizing information, and solving multistep problems. Adapting teaching methods and allowing more time and repetition is key.
Memory Difficulties
Many special needs students have hurdles learning and retaining new information which is exacerbated in busy, chaotic classrooms. Auditory and visual processing disorders impact how the brain takes in information. Some kids have trouble remembering facts, formulas, sequences, or abstract concepts. Short-term memory deficits mean retaining information from day to day is problematic. Memory issues coupled with other learning disabilities make acquiring new skills a gradual, laborious process for many special needs kids.
Language Barriers
A major classroom obstacle for some special needs students is communicating through spoken or written language. Those on the autism spectrum may have minimal or selective speaking skills. Processing disorders impede understanding language. Grammar, sentence structure, and vocabulary usage can be major struggles for kids with learning disabilities. Some have speech intelligibility issues or fluency challenges like stuttering. Weak writing skills make assignments frustrating. When language poses a barrier, demonstrating learning and classroom participation becomes difficult.
Reading Challenges
Many special needs children, especially those with dyslexia or other specific learning disabilities, have trouble mastering reading skills. Phonological awareness, decoding, fluency, and reading comprehension may all lag behind grade level. Slow, inaccurate reading hampers success across subjects. Retaining information from textbooks is limited without solid literacy abilities. Some students avoid reading aloud to prevent embarrassment over mispronunciations or hesitations. Adapting literacy instruction methods is essential for special needs children.
Math Difficulties
Math skills present another academic roadblock for lots of special needs kids. Dyscalculia impedes understanding mathematical logic and relationships. Visual-spatial deficits impact interpreting charts or arrays. Sequencing issues make multistep equations problematic. Counting, memorizing math facts, and place value can be challenging. Word problems and real world applications of math may require accommodations. As math curriculum advances each year, gaps in foundational skills widen, causing math anxiety and avoidance. Targeted instruction and differentiation are necessary.
Limited Focus and Attention
ADHD and other attention deficits negatively impact many special needs children’s ability to concentrate during lessons. They struggle filtering out distractions and sustaining focus, especially during verbal heavy instructions. Shifting attention between individual, small group and whole class learning requires extra effort. Weak focus stamina can cause students to miss key information preventing content mastery. Providing alternate ways to demonstrate learning beyond strict attention and reducing stimuli can assist focus.
Slow Processing Speed
Another roadblock tied closely with attention and memory is slow processing of information. Students may require increased time to process spoken instruction, read text, write responses, or formulate answers. Quick-paced classroom environments can exacerbate these delays. Rushing causes mental shut down. Special needs kids need adequate time for their brains to decode, comprehend, absorb and apply new information before demonstrating their learning. Patience and accommodations for processing delays are essential.
Executive Functioning Weaknesses
Many special needs children demonstrate executive functioning difficulties with planning, prioritizing, organization, time management, sustained effort, flexibility, working memory and self-control. These critical skills are needed to navigate the workload, schedules, routines, and expectations of school. Following multi-step directions, keeping track of materials, studying effectively, starting and completing tasks, and self-advocating all require solid executive skills. Kids with deficits struggle academically and behaviourally without interventions targeting these abilities.
Social-Emotional Factors
Academic struggles can be compounded by tied social-emotional issues like bullying, learning anxiety, acting out behaviours, low self-confidence, poor peer relations, and feelings of failure. Mental health concerns like depression or trauma are more prevalent in special needs populations as well. These can all hinder motivation, engagement and class participation. Ensuring instruction builds confidence and self-efficacy is equally important as academic support for special needs children.
Transitions Between Settings
Moving between general and special education settings or various therapies poses an instructional challenge for some students. They must shift learning modes and expectations frequently, which can be mentally fatiguing. Gaps or redundancies in curricula may exist between settings. Carrying over and retaining skills from one environment to another is difficult without planning. Consistent communication and feedback loops between special and general education teachers is essential for cohesive learning.
The range of hurdles special needs kids face in accessing curriculum and demonstrating learning is vast. But educating students alongside their typical peers remains a priority when appropriate. With sound instructional strategies catered to the diverse needs of special needs students, a well-supported inclusive classroom environment is possible. Special and general ed teachers must collaborate closely. Flexibility, problem-solving and differentiated teaching are key. Most importantly, believing in the capability of special needs kids to thrive academically given the right tools is foundational. With this level of understanding and support, classrooms can become places where all students succeed.
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