The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, also known as IDEA, defines autism as “a developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally evident before age three, that adversely affects a child’s educational performance.” IDEA goes on to state that some characteristics of autism include “engaging in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term autism does not apply if the child’s educational performance is adversely affected primarily because the child has an emotional disturbance.” A qualified professional is needed in order to accurately diagnose a child with autism, typically a psychiatrist or physician.
Special education tutoring services are available for all school-aged children. Increasing in demand, supplemental learning through special education tutoring can be effective for all children with special needs. Due in large part to the continued increase of class sizes and decline of available public resources, more parents are turning to special education tutoring as a way to ensure their child with special needs receives the care and one-on-one attention they deserve.
Tips For Teaching
There are certain traits that can provide obstacles on the course to a child with autism’s educational success, and can include:
- Behavioral issues that become disruptive
- Trouble paying attention
- Difficulty following directions
- Inability to properly communicate
There are steps you can take to help your child learn in the best way possible, working with their autism and natural abilities. While these tips are designed for children with autism, they also provide good advice for all children with special needs who might need a little bit of extra attention in order to breakthrough their learning barriers.
Try these tips:
- Give directions one step at a time. While the ability to follow instructions might come easily for children in the general education population, it’s often difficult for children with autism. If you provide special education tutoring services, make sure to break the directions down into bite-sized bits that children can easily complete with a minimum of frustration. Make sure the child is able to easily complete the task before moving on to the next step.
- Try some assistive technologies. For those children that have issues with communication, technology can be your best friend. Devices like an iPad or kid-friendly tablet can help children communicate through pictures, sound or simple touch-screen activity.
- Add some interests. For some children, learning is a process that is terribly boring for them; for children with autism, they can lose interest in an activity quicker than others. Try peppering their lessons with things that interest them in a way that makes sense: if a child loves trains, incorporate trains into their word problems or other learning activities.
- Get to know them. Sometimes children cannot properly communicate their thoughts and feelings, which can make them feel left out or like no one understands them. If you’re a special education tutor, take some time every day to get to know the child. Children with autism experience the world in ways we might not, which is why it’s of utter importance to learn their language, behaviors, interests and dislikes. This can help to make them feel understood in a safe, open environment.
It’s also critical to know what your child’s triggers are and what calms them down. Every child responds to the same information or situation differently, and getting to intimately know their actions, thoughts and fears can lead to better results from special education tutoring.
As noted author Ignacio Estrada once said, “If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn.” It can be frustrating to the child as they work hard to keep up with their peers in a school’s general population, the ones who don’t require special assistance or modifications to their daily environment in order to learn.
A school’s curriculum is designed to help your child reach certain educational milestones, but even specially modified lessons might still not be what your child truly needs to learn the concepts they’re supposed to. In most cases, the school is not at fault for their programs; the child with autism just needs a different way of learning. If you’ve tried modifying the environment and adjusting the lessons to your child and they still need some assistance, special education tutoring might be just what your child needs.
An Individual Education Plan (IEP) will be devised at the beginning of your child’s school year – this will help lay out specific goals your child’s teacher will be helping them work towards during the year, but even this doesn’t necessarily mean your child will learn in a way that meets those goals. Special Education Resource recognizes the need for special education tutoring outside of the classroom or in addition to a regular school day. We provide individualized lesson plans and on-on-one tutor instruction that is tailored to your child’s specific learning needs.
Special Education Tutoring Today
Special Education Resource knows how frustrating it can be to both you and your child when it comes to both teaching and learning. Special education tutoring gives your child a way to learn that fits their own style and abilities, and never pushes them outside of their comfort zone. For some, special education tutoring comes as a welcome reprieve from the rigors of daily school life and can act as a catalyst for educational change at home and school. Your child will learn to feel confident in their work, which can help them feel better about themselves in general.
When you take the current curriculum and repurpose it to fit your child’s unique way of learning, you open up a world of educational possibilities that might have been hidden before. With enough time spent on consistent special education tutoring, a child with autism will start to understand more and more. There is a light at the end of the tunnel – you just need to be patient.
The first step in the process is a free consultation. This one-on-one call with a special education tutor is designed to receive answers, guidance and a plan to ensure your child with autism reaches their academic excellence.
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