Living and learning with your child who is specially different

by Veronica Jenkins, Teacher in field of Special Educational Needs

Children are children, seems a pretty obvious statement, but when we have the mixed blessing of a child with learning difficulties come into our lives and the professionals start to arrive, we can somehow lose the child.

All children need love, all children need to belong, all children need to have the chance to develop through play and interaction with others. The last, and only the last, of these statements is any different for a child with learning difficulties.

With these children, the steps to learning are higher, longer, steeper and a lot more uneven. As a parent you are the person supporting your children up these steps.

Children with 'normal' learning patterns astound you with the knowledge they pick up from a brief conversation, a programme on TV, a creative thought or idea developed through play. This is not so for a child with learning difficulties, each step of learning will be directed, supported and repeated time and time again. Even play itself needs to be taught.

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