Five Tips for Helping Students with Special Needs

They say that teaching is a thankless job – not only are teachers underpaid, but many of them dedicate countless hours of their free time to do extra work for their students. Being a teacher, in general, can be very difficult, but being a special needs teacher comes with its own unique set of challenges. Whether you are a special needs teacher or the parent of a special needs child, keep reading to learn some helpful tips for making the most of your child’s education.

What are the Challenges of Working with Special Needs Students?

Compared to most other professions, the burn-out rate for special needs teachers is extremely high – approximately 50% of special education teachers leave their jobs within just 5 years. Teaching is a difficult and stressful career in and of itself, but special education adds an extra layer of difficulty. Some of the biggest challenges of working with special needs students are as follows:

• Lack of parental support. You can pour your heart and soul into your efforts as a special education teacher but if the child’s parents are not on board, all of that work could be for nothing. Having a positive relationship with the parents of your students is essential.
• Lack of appreciation. Teachers do not teach because it is a prestigious or high-paying career – they do it for the love of the students. Still, a little appreciation goes a long way, especially in a challenging and stressful field like special education.
• Too much paperwork. Every special needs child needs an Individual Education Plan (or IEP) and each one can easily reach 10 to 20 pages long. Not only do these plans take time to develop, but there is a lot of documentation that needs to take place. This is all on top of your regular teaching duties which include curriculum planning, progress reports, lesson planning, and more.
• Scheduling challenges. Many special needs students have special schedules for their school day depending on which classes they are able to take and taking into account their needs for additional services like occupational or speech therapy.
• Working with other teachers. As a special education teacher, you have to develop your own curriculum for your students, but you also need to know the general education curriculum so you can work with your students to help them with their regular classes. Collaborating with other teachers can be very difficult, especially if they do not understand the challenges of special education.
• Too much documentation. In addition to developing each student’s IEP, you also need to collect data and provide evidence of student growth. If you claim that your student is struggling in a particular area, you need hard data to back up that claim and then you need to develop a plan for improvement.

Every situation is different so, as a special needs teacher, you may struggle with some of these challenges more than others. To help make your job as a special education teacher easier – and to ensure that your special needs students get the help they need – follow the parenting and teaching tips provided in the next two sections.

This video discusses teaching students with special needs.

Teaching Tips for Students with Special Needs

Each and every special needs child is an individual so your teaching style will be dictated by the unique challenges each child faces. To help you succeed in teaching special needs students in general, however, you should consider the following five teaching tips:

This video offers five tips for special education teachers.

Tips for Parents of Special Needs Children

Even if you are not responsible for your child’s education, there are still things you can do as the parent of a special needs child to make things easier on your child’s teacher and to ensure that your child gets a quality education. Below you will find five helpful tips for parenting a special needs child:

This video offers suggestions on how to teach students with special needs.

Whether you are a special education teacher or the parent of a special needs child, you will face an endless array of challenges throughout the course of the child’s educational career. Being realistic about these challenges and preparing yourself for them will make your life infinitely easier and it will benefit your special needs student as well.

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