Last Updated on October 3, 2024 by Editorial Team
The parenting learning curve takes on a completely different facet when you have a kid with special needs. However, it is a wonderful experience to connect with your child through various means and build a healthy bond. You can feel isolated, be riddled with concerns, about what’s best for your child, and not know who to turn to for help. This is when there arises a need for proper support resources. There are endless resources that you can look for and use to connect with your child. Books, podcasts, and youtube videos.
Teaching a child with special needs can be a challenge but with the correct resources, you can beat this difficulty and emerge with flying colors. The right resource and a bit of awareness will make it easy for you to teach your children keeping them comfortable in the sessions. Whether it is reading a story or painting a picture of mountains, support resources can be of great help for parents to understand and acknowledge the child’s needs better.
How can resources help parents?
There are several factors to take into account while looking for the ideal special needs resources for your family. Children with learning difficulties face challenges while reading, writing, and in the overall educational approach. While teachers play an important role in imparting knowledge, parents also need certain support resources to help their children progress in the most effective manner.
When parents are equipped with the required support, they can reduce the difficulties by making children learn new skills and help them cope independently. Support resources also help parents understand the issues faced by the children in a deep and elaborated manner. This, in turn, results in better communication with teachers and educational instructors to help them understand child behavior at home which strengthens the bond between parent and child. When parents and teachers make collaborative efforts for children with learning disabilities, they are more likely to progress and enjoy learning.
The inclusion of parents in education plays a valuable role in imparting skills and knowledge to children. Parents can receive proper guidance and experience through different support resources available for children with learning disabilities.
Certain support resources also help parents modify their parenting style according to the child’s requirements. While some children enjoy working independently, others also require support from parents. Similarly. parents can adapt themselves to a situation that balances the child’s interest and improvises the learning experience.
Support resources that can come in handy for parents who have a child with LD
As parents might find it difficult to cope with certain situations, support resources are excellent to keep them motivated by easing the learning process.
1. Books
Books are considered the best companion as they always support you with everything, whether it be knowledge or innovative ideas. If you are looking for the best resources to understand and eliminate the issues, you can opt to read several books on the specified subject matter. They can bring out the best ideas and help you with some out-of-the-box tricks to calm your child and make them focus.
Parents can consider one of these books to gain more insights as to how they can help out their child with LD:
1. The Power of Different by Gail Saltz:
This book talks about the connection between great talent and conditions which are perceived as “disabilities.” Giving parents insights into how these struggles can be one’s greatest strengths; this book talks about how people with learning disabilities often end up becoming epitomes of human creativity.
2. The Misunderstood Child, Fourth Edition – Larry B. Silver:
This book will provide parents a guide as to how to identify and address disabilities, from dyslexia to other learning and sensory disabilities. Also, the updated version of the book has new information on the genetics of learning disorders that can be of help if parents want to study their child’s disability.
3. The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan – Ben Foss:
While most books give knowledge about what dyslexia and other learning disorders are, this book guides parents as to what can be done if their child is having an LD. The book works on a three-step approach:
- Identify your child’s profile
- Help your child help himself
- Create community
2. Support Groups for Parents
Parents of children who have learning disabilities can take advantage of certain support groups that can help parents with emotional support as well as give them knowledge and insights about the learning disability. From Emotional support groups to educational, school-based, and even regional support, parents can be part of many such groups. Some of them are:
- Parent to Parent: With the motto of “No parent should feel alone. Ever” this USA-based group helps people by letting them vent out their child’s story, challenges, and much more. This organization helps parents connect with a parent mentor who has had a similar experience.
- Asperger/ Autism Network: This group serves families by helping them with webinars, speakers, resources, and events. Helping parents with teenage children, generally focuses more on learning disorders like Autism.
- Easter Seals: Connecting parents locally, this support group offers a wide range of services to parents who have kids with a learning disability. Staff members of this national group are connected to services that can also help adults in funding, schools, and programs for their little learners who is having some LD.
3. Multimodal Learning Resources based on Technology
Technology has impacted schooling more deeply than ever before. Almost all facets of education now use technologically based tools for visual learning. While dyslexics now have simple aids in writing and reading assistance applications, teaching at home with these resources is becoming more sophisticated and easy.
Parents can now take help from numerous video podcasts to inculcate different learning methods for their children. These Vodcasts may be used to teach craft skills, how to draw an animal or building, or how to write letters. Parents who also teach their kids at home can use visual cues such as photos and graphs which are excellent examples of Multimodal learning.
4. Simple Supplies
Parents can now benefit from several classroom materials and tools excellent to impart knowledge and skills to children. Most tools are straightforward and kid-friendly. Such tools are perfectly designed considering the specific requirements of parents with special children. They can make the child learn motor skills, reading, writing skills, and memory-building sessions through such materials.
Tiles, tokens or chips, beads, Cuisenaire rods, and other manipulatives can be used to develop counting and phonological awareness abilities. These are also used to educate difficult math concepts and sophisticated linguistic abilities.
To be creative while presenting multisensory lessons, try using sandboxes, dry erase boards, hair gel in a bag, or softballs. Play mats with a grid of letters or a matrix of numbers can be equipped with a sound box. Such activities strengthen the parent’s relationship with the child and make them confident around your presence.
5. Flashcards
Flashcards could be the best option for parents who require ongoing practice for their children. These aid in quick fact memory, but children can also develop conceptual understanding by placing facts in various settings. These cards are useful aids for mental math because of attributes like mobility and adaptability.
Try creating flashcards with different arithmetic hints and techniques to see how they function. Additionally, you may offer them a flashcard and ask them to respond as fast as possible.
5 things parents can do to help their specially-abled child
1. Accept and Appreciate
Recognize and appreciate the fact that each person has a unique set of strengths and weaknesses. It’s critical to acknowledge and value each person’s assets and limitations. Once you accept that your child has different capabilities, you can help them progress efficiently.
2. Stay Positive about Mistakes
Show through example that making mistakes is completely normal. Say, “Oops! I made a mistake while coloring the picture; I shall begin again”, for instance. Such statements inspire the kids to make mistakes and start over rather than displaying frustration about the situations.
3. Ask and Acknowledge
Before assisting, ask the learning disabled youngster if they would like assistance with a daily chore requiring academic abilities. Some special children may want to solve the problem on their own. Acknowledge their feelings and decision-making skills while they take responsibility for the task.
4. Teach How to Express Negative Emotions
Teach kids how to express their unpleasant and bad feelings safely. Children can become quite frustrated with their schoolwork and may even feel that they have a learning problem while a sibling does not. Recognize that it’s alright to feel this way and offer channels to express these feelings securely.
5. Know that Effort Counts
Encourage effort above results. Instead of focusing on the right or wrong response, it’s critical to identify when a youngster is making an effort. You may remark, “I am very proud of how you are staying with this arithmetic,” or “I truly enjoy how hard you are working to figure out this math issue.” For instance, you may say, “I enjoy how hard you worked to catch that little fish in the game.” Such statements encourage kids to realize that their effort is recognized without looking for the best outputs.
Conclusion
It is necessary to transform the educational paradigm to one that is more inclusive due to cases with unique learning impairments (about 5–15 percent of the US population and comparable figures in other countries). This paradigm change has created the ideal environment for integrating multimodal tools into the classroom. These tools support instructors and parents as they move closer to academic goals. Thanks to these interesting resources, they help parents deal with circumstances quite effectively.
An engineer, Maths expert, Online Tutor and animal rights activist. In more than 5+ years of my online teaching experience, I closely worked with many students struggling with dyscalculia and dyslexia. With the years passing, I learned that not much effort being put into the awareness of this learning disorder. Students with dyscalculia often misunderstood for having just a simple math fear. This is still an underresearched and understudied subject. I am also the founder of Smartynote -‘The notepad app for dyslexia’,