Teaching Strategies for Students With Special Learning Needs

Introduction

Educators are faced with the challenge of meeting each student's unique needs. Everyone deserves a chance to grow, learn, and face the challenges necessary for attaining excellence. Special needs children are present in virtually every learning environment, and each requires special attention because of their uniqueness in the learning process. Such learners may possess special gifts, including exceptional learning potential and other talents. When these gifts are nurtured, these students are likely to make significant contributions to their communities and to the world at large (Davis & Rimm, 2004).

Recommendations for the Gifted Student

One student has been found to possess special gifts, including excellent emotional and physical health, remarkable intelligence, eidetic memory, and strong artistic and creative abilities. He demonstrates exceptional ability across a wide range of learning areas, and his performance is clearly above average in several specified domains — a profile comparable to that of a child prodigy in mathematics. Several suggestions have been proposed for handling such cases at the administrative level:

• Compacting the curriculum: Pre-assessment can be used to identify areas the student has already mastered. Those areas should be removed from the content lined up for instruction. Areas of new material that can be covered faster than the normal pace should also be identified.
• Independent study sessions: Such students should be granted independent study time to explore subjects or topics of personal interest in greater depth. This strategy can emerge naturally from curriculum compacting, as the compacted material frees up time for independent work.
• Differentiation: While most students may be directed to use standard reference materials, gifted learners should be assigned more complex resources — sources that contain greater detail about the subject under study.
• Product differentiation: Students with special abilities may be asked to complete tasks independently using tiered instruction, rather than the guided sessions used for average learners. Such students may also be assigned a different set of criteria for the final product.
• Flexibility in grouping students with advanced skills: Gifted learners should be given opportunities to interact with like-minded peers.
• Cross-grade grouping: Differentiating content by group level — rather than by grade or age — allows progression based on individual achievement.
• Opportunities for advanced content: Online learning opportunities, advanced placement, and dual enrollment in institutions may be considered for students with special gifts. Caution is needed, however, to ensure that all curriculum requirements are still addressed.
• Acceleration: Gifted children can be provided with accelerated content while remaining with their grade-level peers. Each educational district has specific requirements in this area; the relevant stipulations should be confirmed with the school administrator.
• Math-based contests: Encouraging gifted learners to participate in mathematics competitions gives them a chance to consolidate their abilities, reaffirm their skills, and build relationships (Elliott et al., 2013).

Teaching-Level Recommendations for Gifted Learners

In addition to administrative strategies, the following teaching-level recommendations are relevant for gifted students:

• Provide supplementary materials at an advanced level.
• Ask higher-order questions that promote critical thinking.
• Offer higher-level thinking assessments.
• Make available materials that address the depth and breadth of topics in the student's areas of interest.
• Provide opportunities for creativity development (Johnsen, 2004).

Recommendations for the Student With Emotional and Behavioral Challenges

A second student displays erratic tendencies. She seeks attention and is frequently withdrawn. There are apparent health and emotional challenges that she faces. On the positive side, she shows altruistic qualities and loves to help elderly people, those who are poor, and children in need. Learners with this profile need to be placed in a classroom environment with well-planned behavior management measures (Seevers, 2014). Suggestions for working with students of this type include:

• Instruction should focus on the student's strengths as well as her learning deficiencies. When instructional strategies are not designed this way, frustration often develops, manifesting as attention-seeking behavior or withdrawal. There should be a consistent effort to address learning needs while minimizing reactive tendencies.
• Deploying staff with the qualifications required to handle students with emotional and behavioral challenges is essential.
• Assessment of each student's individual needs is necessary. It allows the instructor to identify the specific needs of each case rather than relying solely on the standard curriculum template. In this student's case, each assessment should be custom-made; a packaged assessment program should be avoided.
• The instructional program must provide solutions to her learning challenges. It should be a well-designed, effective program tailored to include the social, vocational, and life skills she needs in order to benefit from a classroom environment.
• Each learner's attention span and learning style should be incorporated into the instructional program and curriculum design.
• Alternative programs should be incorporated alongside conventional instructional programs. Areas such as health services, social services, child protection, and foster care are useful in addressing the wide range of needs a child may experience both in school and outside of it (Quinn et al., 2000).

The following interventions may be applied by therapists or counselors working with this student to address her behavioral tendencies:

• Self-management: This refers to the ability to control one's emotions, behaviors, and thoughts across a variety of situations. Stress management, impulse control, self-motivation, and goal achievement are all components of self-management.
• Social awareness: This involves the ability to see matters from a real-life perspective, including developing empathy for people from diverse backgrounds, understanding social norms, and recognizing the cultures of others. It also means taking note of the resources available through family, community, and school.
• Relationship skills: This refers to the ability to maintain healthy relationships with people from diverse backgrounds. Key elements include communication skills such as active listening, negotiation, constructive criticism, and the ability to resist undue social pressure (Ponischil, 2014).

References

Autism Speaks Inc. (2012). Supporting learning in the student with autism. Retrieved from Autism Speaks Inc.

Davis, G. A., & Rimm, S. B. (2004). Education of the gifted and talented (1st ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Elliott, C., Mallard, J., Kelly, J., King, W., McGrath, B., & Pike, T., et al. (2013). Teaching students who are gifted and talented (1st ed.). Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education.

Fukunaga, L., Simonelli, S., & Sperry, L. (2013). Individualized educational support strategies for students with autism in inclusive classroom settings.

Johnsen, S. (2004). Identifying gifted students (1st ed.). Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

Ponischil, K. (2014). Cultivating kindness and compassion in children. The Center for Child and Family Well-Being.

Quinn, M. M., Osher, D., Warger, C., Hanley, T., Bader, B., Tate, R., & Hoffman, C. (2000). Educational strategies for children with emotional and behavioral problems. Center for Effective Collaboration and Practice.

Seevers, R. L. (2014). Supporting students with emotional and behavior disorders: Perceptions of health providers, special educators, general educators, administrators, and parents. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 4(13), 43–45.