Does your child have special needs?

A daughter looking up at her mother. A special needs child has a difficulty or disability which makes it harder for them to learn at par with their peers. 

In Summary

• Developmental delays may point to larger problems. Here’s how to assess your child correctly.

By Joan Thatiah
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Children develop at different rates and at one point or another, most parents have worried that their child is lagging behind on the developmental curve. Seeing as each child is unique, how can a parent tell that their child has special needs?

A special needs child has a difficulty or disability which makes it harder for them to learn at par with their peers. Denis Otieno, a home educator for children with special needs, notes that these needs cover a wide spectrum.

It may be mental, emotional, physical or a health issue. Most physical limitations like blindness, deafness or physical disabilities will be apparent to a parent early on but emotional and behavioural ones may not.

Mental and emotional disorders, which make up for a large part of learning disorders, stem from how the brain processes information, making it difficult for the child to grasp some concepts.

After diagnosis

Most special needs are not something that a child can outgrow and naturally, a diagnosis can stir up grief, anger, denial, guilt and even confusion in the parent.

For mother of two Wamuyu Kiruga, whose child was diagnosed with autism, putting a name to her child’s behaviour came with relief. Soon after, she set about learning all what she could about it. “The more informed you are the less alone and confused you feel,” she shares.

Pooja Panesar, a behaviour analyst and founder of Kaizora Consultants, a school for children with autism, stresses that early diagnosis and subsequent treatment of developmental disorders significantly improves the outlook for the child and can enable him or her to lead a normal life.

These are several successful, well known personalities who can be used to illustrate the fact that special needs should not get in the way of a child’s abilities. Richard Branson, a billionaire businessman for instance, struggled with dyslexia.

Albert Einstein had Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of high functioning autism. While special needs cover a wide spectrum, most of the educational needs are similar.

Depending on the severity of the limitation, a child may learn in ordinary classes in mainstream schools where they get additional help from teachers or they may need to attend schools for children who have specific needs.

The government provides educational assessment centres at a district level where you can take your child to be assessed. Either way, the child needs a study environment where they can get extra support.

Otieno recommends one-on-one teaching support even alongside regular education or teaching in smaller groups as it places the child in a position for a better outcome.

For Wamuyu Kiruga, teamwork has helped. Her son, now eight, goes to a regular school and she talks with his teachers to find ways to work around his problem and focus on his strength, which is numbers.

They have also adopted different teaching lessons for him which include pictures and music.