31st January 2018

Children with special needs benefit from open, flexible environments provided to them with opportunities for choices and enhance their independence and development. The educational programs of the Nursery Practitioner Courses are designed to foster progress for each individual child and their needs.

Their needs are special, just like others:

• Gifted children need strong, responsible educators for appropriate guidance to assure that provisions for gifted children are kept firmly in place.
• They need development in domains such as fine and gross motor, expressive and receptive language, intellectual, social-emotional and self-help skills.

The key for special children is respect:

• Give respect for their uniqueness, respect for their opinions and ideas, respect for their dreams.
• A big smile can be the only indication to the child to ascertain that they have made an achievement.
• Gifted children need educators trained in Child Development Teaching courses who are responsive and flexible.
• The educators are trained to take the onus to do things for them and teaching them at the same time.
• Children need to know that their uniqueness is cherished and that they are appreciated as persons just for being themselves.

Observing the special child plays a vital part:

• Observing the child with special needs is a vital part of the training imparted at SEN courses for teachers which provides information about what a child can and cannot do in the area of developmental.
• Teachers can use this information to help set goals for a child and plan activities that help the child progress.
• Teachers and parents pool the observations of a child’s skills, working together to develop appropriate educational options for nurturing those abilities.

Recording and documenting their development:

• By recording their observations, teachers document children's work and the quality of that work or interaction.
• This information enables them to better evaluate and set goals for the child with special needs.
• This can reveal patterns of behaviour, learning preferences, mastery of skills, and developmental progress.

Enhance a teaching strategy:

• Observing or supervising a child can be the vehicle for the teacher to change or enhance a specific teaching strategy.
• Observation can be done in a small group setting while the child is engaged in learning tasks.
• As a teacher trained with Child Development Teaching courses you can work upon aspects like :

1) Does the child persist?

2) Does he/she give up easily?

3) Does he/she look for assistance?

4) Does he/she become impatient?

• Exploring these areas and more areas like this enables the teachers to work on enhancing the teaching strategy and implement it for the child’s development.