Challenges Faced by Learners with Special Needs in School

School life, in general, can be extremely challenging for learners with special needs. This is because traditional schools are designed with a “normal” learner in mind. They are inaccessible, unaccommodating, and too rigid for learners with special needs. The Ministry of Education has done a lot to help students with special needs, but these learners still face many glaring challenges. Some challenges are general for all special needs while others are specific to a single special need.

General Challenges Faced By Learners With Special Needs

1. Inaccessibility

Most of our Kenyan schools were built when kids with special needs were not expected to go to school. The way pavements, washrooms, classrooms, etc. don’t have ramps for physically challenged learners. Storey buildings in most schools don’t have elevators to enhance accessibility by special needs learners.

2. Inadequate specialists

Many educational institutions don’t have specialists who can work with learners with special needs. There is an acute shortage of special education teachers countrywide, including in schools that specialize in specific special needs, e.g. schools for the visually impaired.

3. Stereotypes and stigmatization

Special needs students continue to face negative attitudes, stigmatization, and stereotypes both in and outside the classroom. Lack of knowledge about and sensitivity to their issues on the part of fellow learners and some teachers can make school unbearable for students.

4. Lack of individualization

Teachers mostly rely on blanket approaches to accommodation, rather than assessing each student on an individual basis. This means assessments, teaching methods, disciplinary policies, etc. are rigidly applied to all learners and do not take into account a student’s individual circumstances. Conversely, schools that try to have individualized approaches emphasize the weaknesses rather than the strengths of special learners. It is mostly a lose-lose situation for these learners.

5.Insufficient funding

Budgetary considerations are made without a thorough assessment of the actual needs of special learners. This is not because school administrators don't care for these learners, but rather because of financial constraints in schools. For example, not many schools can afford to buy assistive technologies for special learners.

Common Special Need Cases In Schools and The Unique Challenges Faced By Each

Common special needs include:

Auditory Impairment

This is severe hearing impairment. A learner with AI cannot process linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification. The challenges these special learners face include:

i. They are unable to participate in conversations due to stigma, making them feel lonely, unexpressed, and socially marginalized.

ii. Loneliness results in chronic stress and depression.

iii. Communicating in poorly-lit classrooms is a huge problem for these learners. This is because they rely on visual stimuli, sign language, and lip reading for communication.

iv. Being startled easily when somebody approaches them from behind. This is because they are unable to hear the vibrations on the floor when somebody is approaching them.

v. Fluorescent lights emit a special sound that interferes with hearing aids and cochlear implants. This makes it even more difficult for these learners to distinguish what peers or the teacher are saying.

Autism

Autism is a developmental disability that inhibits verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities, resistance to environmental change, strict adherence to daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.

Learners with autism face these among other challenges in school:

i. They need constant instructions which are not available in classrooms.

ii. Sensory challenges like yelling, hall buzzer, echoing, etc. can be trigger points or overwhelming for children with Autism.

iii. It is very difficult to follow the same routine in school like playing, activities & studies so a change in routine can be stressful for an autistic learner. Sometimes maladaptive behavior can be increased if they face unpredictable situations in school.

iv. Cognitive processing delays. In a classroom, where children are expected to shoot up their hands in response to questions, processing delays can present a seemingly impossible barrier with both learning and social consequences.

v. Handwriting is the biggest challenge for them because it requires multitasking, i.e. fine motor skill, eye-hand coordination, visual perception, etc.

Visual Impairment

These kids are either totally or partially blind. Some of the challenges they face are:

i. Unfavorable infrastructure such as stairs and raised pavements makes it hard for these learners to find their way around. This causes them an emotional dilemma.

ii. Most laboratories and science experiments aren’t designed to accommodate visually impaired students. Most experiments require students to see which and how chemicals react with each other.

iii. Braille books take up more space than regular books. Students with visual impairments might need bigger studying spaces, larger rooms, and larger desks which are not always available.

Deaf-blindness

This is when a learner has both hearing and visual impairments. This combination causes severe communication and other developmental and educational needs. The challenges they face include:

i. They can’t fit into special education programs that are designed for children with deafness or children with blindness.

ii. Moving around the classroom or taking part in more active lessons is a challenge to them because they don’t have access to the same cues. Whether it is being told to stop or viewing the obstacles in front of them to avoid harm.

iii. For many children with this condition, development can be far more challenging. This is because most children learn through listening and visual stimuli, whereas a child with deafblindness can’t achieve the same level of immersion in traditional lesson planning.

Emotional Disturbance (ED)

Schizophrenia is the most common type of emotional disturbance.

i. Learners suffering from ED exhibit an inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors.

ii. They are unable to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers, precipitating inappropriate types of behavior or feelings.

iii. They are also mostly unhappy and depressed.

iv. Reading deficiencies are prevalent in children with ED.

v. Learners with ED have a high school dropout rate.

Learning Difficulties (LD)

The major types of LDs are:

i. Dyslexia (Difficulty in reading),

ii. Dysgraphia (Problems in language- expressive or receptive),

iii. Dyscalculia (difficulty with calculations or mathematical symbols),

iv. Dyspraxia (difficulty with fine motor skills),

v. Processing Disorder (affects how sound is interpreted)

vi. Visual Processing Disorder (difficulty interpreting visual information)

These learners have a problem using language, spoken or written. They struggle to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical calculations. These learners should not be confused with learners with emotional disturbance. They also don’t have visual, hearing, or motor disabilities. Their challenges come largely from environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantages.

The challenges they face in school include:

i. Reading/writing/spelling/math difficulties. Most of them cannot cope with learning in a regular school setup, so they drop out in most cases.

ii. The process of writing is too tedious for them. This is manifested in slow speed of writing, poor spelling, poor handwriting, as well as poor sentence and paragraph structure.

iii. Difficulties in oral rhyming, blending, and segmenting sounds in words.

iv. Delayed speech and language development Limited spoken vocabulary, which affects their social life.

Intellectual Disability (ID)

These special needs students have subaverage general intellectual functioning and slow cognitive processing. They also have deficits in adaptive behavior. They have difficulty understanding new information, comprehending abstract concepts, and socializing. Their common challenges in school include:

i. They struggle to answer multiple-choice questions because they are unable to appreciate subtle changes in the arrangement of words.

ii. They struggle to take part in group discussions because it takes longer for them to organize thoughts and sequence material.

iii. They struggle to complete tests and exams in good time. They need extra time in an examination for reading and analyzing questions and for planning their answers.

iv. Some students can’t understand examination questions unless they are read to them. They may also prefer to dictate their answers as opposed to writing them down.

v. They are easily distracted. They will need to learn and do their tests in a venue that is quiet and distraction-free.

Multiple impairments

These are learners with a combination of many impairments. Multiple impairments do not include deaf-blindness. In order to meet the definition of Multiple Impairment, the student's disability is expected to continue indefinitely; and the disabilities severely impair performance in two or more of the following areas: psychomotor skills; self-care skills; communication; social and emotional development; or cognition. The key challenges faced by these learners are:

i. They cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments.

ii. Severe limitations in their ability to walk, talk, and otherwise engage with peers.

iii. They may have severe cognitive challenges.

Orthopedic impairment

Orthopedic impairments are caused by congenital anomalies, diseases, accidents, etc. Learners with orthopedic impairments have a wide range of characteristics that are specific to the underlying diagnosis. It is, therefore, difficult to generalize about the students in this category. For example, a child with a spinal cord injury could have immobility limited to one side of his or her body, just the arms or legs, or total paralysis. A child with cerebral palsy may have movement but need a wheelchair because he or she has slow, uncontrolled movements that make it difficult to walk.

Their common challenges include:

i. Some diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, are progressive. This means a child's need for services is likely to increase and certainly change throughout the continuum of education.

ii. Poor self-concept and poor self-advocacy skills may affect an individual student's performance or behavior.

iii. Some students with orthopedic impairments feel helpless or depressed as a result of their physical disability.

iv. These students' social interactions often are limited because of limited motor, self-help, and self-care skills.

v. Sometimes, standard instructional materials include mention of objects and experiences or assume comprehension that is beyond the experience and background of the learner with orthopedic impairment.

v. Children with orthopedic impairments may have pain and discomfort, may sleep poorly and therefore be fatigued in class, and may be on medications. They also may miss school more frequently than other students because of their medical conditions.

Other health impairment

These are learners with chronic or acute health problems such as asthma, attention deficit disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, diabetes, hemophilia, leukemia, rheumatic fever, sickle cell anemia, acquired brain injury, etc.

Their challenges include:

i. Missing school for unpredictable and prolonged time periods and difficulties attending school full-time or on a daily basis.

ii. Health problems may also interfere with the physical skills needed to complete writing assignments or other learning activities. Individuals with arthritis, for example, may have difficulty writing due to pain or joint deformities.

iii. Prolonged sitting may pose challenges for an individual with chronic pain or back problems.

Some students must avoid specific activities that trigger undesirable reactions. For example, students with asthma may need to avoid specific inhalants in a science lab.

iv. Lack of supportive services of school nurses and other qualified people to attend to them when the need arises.

Speech impairment

This is a communication disorder such as stuttering, voice impairment, impaired articulation, language impairment, etc. Their challenges include:

i. They are mostly stressed and anxious, which can make it even harder to talk and express themselves.

ii. They are easily embarrassed and offended when other kids interrupt them midway through a sentence. This makes it hard for them to make friends.

iii. They struggle with oral presentations.

iv. Lack of individualized education programs (IEPs)

v. Many parents overlook speech or language problems, so many kids with these problems don’t get the help they need from speech-language pathologists.

Final word

Special needs students may have difficulty understanding and expressing information, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make it in life. It is up to parents and educators to collaborate in making school life as bearable as possible for these special learners.