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Special Needs
Finding the Right After-School Activity for Your Child
By Donald A. Sinton
Standing inside an inclusive, early childhood classroom where young children with and without special needs learn and grow together, one is hard-pressed to categorize the children as "special needs" or "typical". That is the beauty of inclusion at the early childhood level.
For most of us old enough to remember days prior to 1980, the idea of sitting next to, playing alongside and learning with children with special needs is a novel one. Instead, we remember separate programs, separate busses, and even separate rooms. We remember that these children were almost meant to look different and as a result we treated them differently, sometimes not always kindly. Though the struggle is not over, times have changed. Classrooms from kindergarten to high school and even college are inclusive, and even sports programs are geared to accept children with special needs. At what point does all this begin? At what point can we introduce the idea to our own children? The answer is during their early childhood years, when they are impressionable.
Our community is blessed with outstanding early childhood programs, many with their own programmatic philosophies. While each of these programs offers children and families a specialized set of benefits, those that embrace an inclusive philosophy (where children with and without special needs learn and grow together) create a unique set of benefits and opportunities for all involved.
Understanding the potential benefits to children with needs, legislation from the 1960s, 70s and even 90s laid the groundwork for inclusion. As a result, children from birth to age 5 with identified needs can now receive special education services alongside their typically developing peers. While a Wonderful idea, we are often asked how this all works for the typical child. How does a child with many needs and deficits play, learn and grow alongside their typical peers? The answer lies in the innocence of children. Left on their own, young children have two rules; I will play with you if you do not hurt me and do not take my things. If you break one of those rules, I will not play with you. Children do not need to know how to talk to roll a ball back and forth, they do not need to function at the same level to build and then knock down a block tower, or to sit at a circle and bang a drum. The truth is that all children (regardless of need) require certain supports, adaptations and tools to allow these activities to happen, and if done correctly it is seamless. In fact, it is this seamless approach that makes it hard for that casual observer to categorize the children into "special needs" or "typical".
Early childhood programs, particularly those with an inclusive model, understand the various ways the children learn, whether they have needs or are typically developing, and incorporate activities and experiences that both meet and challenge the needs and level of each child. For example, asking the same question or giving the same set of directions in a multitude of ways benefits both typical and special needs children and is just good teaching – teaching that promotes inclusion.
The benefits of an inclusive setting to the typically developing child, while possibly not very obvious, are quite numerous. The presence of children with needs in the classroom requires the approval, oversight and regulation of many entities, including that of the NYS Education Department. As a result, a typically developing child in an inclusive classroom learns alongside children with identified needs who receive specific special education therapies such as speech, occupational, physical and even music therapies. While the child with identified needs is targeted by these certified teachErs and therapists, their activities, toys, and manipulatives benefit and educate all the children in the classroom. For instance, a child with Autism who is in an inclusive classroom (among many different services) may receive music therapy prescribed to be delivered in a group.
As a result, a music therapist may enter the room with a guitar, drums, sticks, castanets, egg shakers and more – they target the child with needs (language, motor, focus, direction following skills and more), but all the children participate and benefit.
Yet, it was during a 2003 survey of families whose typically developing children attended Stepping Stones Learning Center that we truly learned the greatest benefit of an inclusive classroom.
Families overwhelmingly responded that their child learned a greater sense of empathy, sympathy, patience, caring and understanding as a result of their involvement with peers who had needs.
What a gift to give to children: a gift we hope they carry well into adulthood.
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