Educating Special Needs Children

Special Needs - Isn't that every child?


As a parent of a 14-year-old boy and a 7-year-old girl, I am very careful whenever I use the words 'special needs' in connection with children.

On the one hand I believe that every child is a special needs child, simply because they are all individuals, each with their own special needs. Many of those special needs they have in common with other children – for example the need to be truly loved, cared for and nurtured – while for others their special needs might be more individually specific to them.

On the other hand however, special needs is often a term broadly applied to those either children that are advantaged in some way, while other children are described as being special needs because they are disadvantaged or have difficulties in other ways.

But there is another important reason why I am cautious about using the word special needs. The reason that I am cautious is because virtually every child that I have ever met that does suffer from a difficulty or disadvantage has also been absolutely blessed in another way. It is though they have been provided with something special that the rest of us don’t have, as though to compensate for the areas in which they have problems. And it is simply a matter of taking the time to discover what their special talent or ability is.

Without exception each and every child has their own way in which to receive and process information most effectively, and it is important that we as parents provide for our children a means by which both the child and the parent(s) can discover what that preferred learning style is for each child. From that point we can then take the necessary steps to provide the most effective education for that child by accommodating their preferred and most effective learning style.

And what I find particularly upsetting is that our education system as we know it today – often tries to dictate to a child what that preferred learning style should be.

As I mentioned to a friend earlier today, I think that it is all too easy to underestimate the wonderful power that is within the minds of our children. I remember some years ago when the Rubik’s Cube was first developed, children as young as 4 and 5 years of age were able to pick up the Rubik’s Cube and find the solution in as little as 10 – 15 minutes. Meanwhile the vast majority of adults would cast it aside in frustration after weeks of unsuccessful attempts. Such is the power within the minds of our children.

Here at Zane Education we provide online subtitled education videos that teach 11 subjects and 250 curriculum topics. Our videos provide each child, special needs or otherwise, with the ability to learn at their own speed thereby enabling them to achieve their greatest potential – whatever that might be.

But they also offer much more! By providing subtitled video we enable each child to learn by choosing to watch, listen or read the subtitles. They choose the learning style that best suits their needs. We believe that in providing this choice we open doors to their learning and their education, rather than closing doors on them by expecting them to learn using what we think best suits them.

For more information about the benefits, actual results, how those results are achieved and the other ways in which our online subtitled videos can be used by you and your special needs child or student, visit our Special Need Students page.

For information on how our online subtitled videos can be used to benefit a variety of other types of students, please see our page Education Video …So Much More with Subtitles page. On that page you can select your preferred category.