Living with people of determination requires careful preparation and specific steps. Identifying common special needs, recognizing signs of developmental challenges, and understanding when intervention is necessary are crucial. Effective support should involve multiple approaches to ensure the child receives the appropriate aid and assistance.
Let’s take a look at some of the most frequent special needs, and then a highlight on how one can be able to notice early signs and most importantly how early detection is vital.
Types of Special Needs
Special needs may include various conditions that are physical, mental, social, or emotional in nature, potentially hindering a child’s development. Some of the most common special needs include:
Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
Autism Spectrum disorder is a developmental disorder that affects an individual’s communication, behaviour and social interpersonal skills. Autism compelled the child to fail in verbal and non-verbal developmental conversation, including learning disabilities, and abnormal repetitive behaviour. The severity of the reported symptoms and the milestones achievement, can be significantly different, that is why many refer it to as a spectrum disorder.
Learning Disabilities
Learning disabilities are often referred to as dys- something and are subtypes of learning problems that stem from neurological processing difficulties affecting students’ ability to acquire knowledge in basic skills, including reading, writing, and mathematics. These disabilities may also impact even higher order skills such as skills in work organisation, time efficiency and even logical thinking.
Sensory Processing Disorder (SPD)
Sensory Processing Disorder entails that children who are diagnosed with the condition have challenges when it comes to sensory information they receive in the form of sights, sounds, touch or movement. They may experience hyperesthesia, meaning they overreact to stimuli, or hypoesthesia, meaning they are under-stimulated. As a result, performing everyday personal activities or specific behaviors can become challenging.
Speech and Language Disorders
Speech and language impairments mean a child cannot use words properly to make himself understood. This can involve problems with the sound and words and how one produces them (articulation disorder) or fluent speech (fluency disorder) or comprehending the language and how to use it (comprehension and use disorder). Speaking therapy at a young age enhances the child’s speaking skills in early stages of development.
Intellectual Disabilities
Learning disability is a condition whereby individuals have subaverage levels of intelligence and have been identified to exhibit either significantly delayed or relatively underlying rates of learning and adaptive skills including those of conceptual, social and practical skill. These disabilities are present from childhood, that is before the age of 18 years and may be mild, moderate or severe.
Identifying Signs and Early Diagnosis
The possibility of early identification of children with special needs is important in order to offer the necessary help and interventions. Here are some signs that may indicate a child has a special need.
Delayed Milestones: Developmental delays or disorders which can be noticed even in childhood – delayed walking, talking, and delays in social skills.
Communication Challenges: Severely delayed or slow speech or language or not being able to understand instructions and/or directions might indicate that the child has a speech or language delay or disability, autism or some other developmental disability.
Behavioural Concerns: Behavioural problems that can be constant include agitation, lack of focus, problems with companionship, and more could possibly point to ADHD, Autism or a behavioural disorder.
Sensory Issues: Sensory overload or under overload, meaning over responsiveness or under responsiveness to sensory stimulus for instance noise, texture or even light can be signs of Sensory Processing Disorder.
Academic Struggles: Learning disabled students experience a lower performance in reading, writing, maths or any other learning task compared to what is expected from a child receiving adequate teacher’s instructions.
Should the parents or caregivers observe these signs, it would be advisable to seek the recommendations of a paediatrician, a developmental specialist or a psychologist. To begin with, early intervention can assist in determination of the child’s learning requirements hence formulate an intervention approach accordingly.
The Importance of Early Intervention
This involves the activities that are employed in dealing with the child aged below seven and the family where the child has been diagnosed to be having a disability. The aim of the early intervention is to enhance the development of the child and make outcomes better, as well as equip families with the necessary instruments for supporting the child’s development.
Improved Developmental Outcomes
Data and evidence suggest that early education and specially designed intervention can go a long way in re-shaping the pattern of development of a child. This way, one can easily enable the child to overcome them with much more ease besides acquiring skills that can boost their learning, speaking and social skills.
Better Academic Performance
This means that if a child gets early intervention services then they are likely to do well in school. As observed early intervention builds a strong foundation in the child with regards to the facets such as language, motor control, and also cognition which enables the child to cope academically at school.
Enhanced Social Skills
Special educational programs for the children with developmental disabilities incorporate social skills that are vital for children to learn on how to relate with others. This applies well especially to children with autism or any other social communication disorders.
Reduced Need for Intensive Services
When special needs are identified and require early intervention the possibility of requiring such special attention in future may be minimal. If milestones are not met early enough, it may lead to certain forms of developmental delays which can otherwise be eliminated or lessen their effects in childhood so as to reduce the number of children who require special education when they go to school.
Support for Families
Other benefits of early intervention programs also include that they offer helpful information as well as support to families. Service users include parents and caregivers who are trained on how to support the child’s development and help themselves and interact with other families in the same situation.
This was all about the special needs and how to prepare for it. Firstly, the signs which suggest that the child may have developmental delays should be acknowledged and the early diagnosis should be encouraged by parents and caregivers, as it could improve the child’s quality of life greatly. Children with special needs should be given support and resources which should enable them to learn right from wrong, as well as be able to accomplish their goals in school and in life.
