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Myth: “Special education is only for children with severe physical and intellectual disabilities.”

Fact: Special education is for any child who has difficulty learning, reading, writing or understanding concepts. Majority of the students fit into the category of “specific learning disability.” That means children who have reading issues like dyslexia, or math issues like dyscalculia.

Often we come across students who are not able to cope up with their school curriculum or have difficulty with either reading, learning spellings, mathematical operations or writing. Mostly, in such cases parents are too flustered and dismayed that in spite of putting in lot of efforts and hard work their children are not able to perform well in academics.

There are many factors that affect child’s performance. One of the factors is child’s ability to acquire, comprehend and manipulate information presented to him/her in order to produce a desired outcome. It is called intelligence. Each child has his/her own unique set of intellectual strengths and weaknesses. This is where special education comes into play. As special educators we identify child’s ability to learn & think and then design a curriculum to develop skills the child is lacking in and to meet his/her unique needs.

At manObal we also work on other areas like communication, social, daily activities, leisure, pre-vocational and vocational and create an environment that promotes holistic development of the child. We strive not only to encourage learning but also provide opportunities for developing child’s social skills and confidence, as every child needs personal attention to overcome their individual differences in terms of academics as well as life skills.

Additionally training is imparter for children overcome major difficulties in phonetic, reading, writing, language development and arithmetic by teaching them strategies which would help them cope up with their learning difficulties, this is done through remediation!

A special educator designs an individualized curriculum that caters to student specific needs and includes all the areas and makes learning interesting, a remedial educator, plans lessons and trains children to perform better in academics.

Individuals who are not able to cope up with main stream education are trained in functional academics which are learning words and language which will aid the individual in his/her daily life through site reading techniques and using technology aids such as a use of calculator, computer, internet etc.

In most times we find that academics is not the only issue but confidence, lack of motivation, inappropriate handling and emotional problems also act upon the child’s performance.

It is very important to prepare them to face the world thus students between the age group of 14 to 18 years are trained in prevocational skills and are provided with the opportunities to assess and identify a suitable career option and train him/her in transforming from a student to an individual.