Teaching special needs children

[Mark Lynn]

Hi there, so i'm throwing around the idea, of teaching kids with special needs, both physical and mental, to give them an outlet, exercise, confidence, discipline ext.

I was wondering, who all has experience with this and any suggestions?

One thing I do know, probably foremost, is PATIENCE! I have nephew with autism so I get it. I understand almost every student will need special attention, and for me to work with them as much as possible.

I know to be very positive, and understanding. I also plan on talking with each parent, to understand their diagnosis, and they're strengths and weaknesses personally, so I can treat each student properly.

Chrissyp

First off I applaud your wanting to help out students with special needs, I believe that is an area that is under served by the martial arts community as a whole but it is not an area that every instructor would want to embrace.

I have several students who face these types of challenges in my classes currently and have taught many more over the last 11 years. Although mine have generally been more from the behavioral side as opposed to physical side. Teaching these kids can be a great joy and can be very trying as well.

I also substitute teach in our local school system often times in the SPED side of things. In fact my wanting to be a more effective teacher for my students with learning challenges is what prompted me to work in the SPED areas of the school district in the first place.

My advice (in regards to teaching kids/young teens)
1) Always talk with the parents, to find out if the child has any learning challenges. This can be hard and awkward but if the parents trust you that you care about the betterment for the child then they will generally open up and discuss their challenges.

2) Don't be afraid to adjust your expectations of what a child can learn or what they can do just to try and hold up some ideal of what a given rank should look like. Sometimes due to medications my students won't have the same look about them as unmedicated students do as to crispness of technique or form. I look at the student as to what they have had to over come to get where they are at. Do they have the right attitude in class, are they trying their best, are they coming to class, do they know the material, etc. etc.

3) Be firm and be kind. Sometimes my students might get all wiggly when they should be still, when I feel they are fooling around (being silly) I get on them and correct the behavior. But sometimes they are off meds (of which you will not be told by the parents) and they won't have the same control as the other students, so then they don't need to be corrected as much as reminded that they are behaving badly and a hand signal will do. However a word of encouragement that tells them you notice how hard they were trying in class that day can bring them huge relief and make their day. Especially in front of their parents.

4) Realize that if you don't suffer the same/similar issues they do we can't begin to relate to what they might be going through at home or school or life in general. And we as instructors can either be helping the student or making their life worse even unintentionally by the way we conduct class. I once had a student who fidgeted, I would warn him m to stand still, he fidgeted more and the cycle would begin. What I didn't understand was that the child got nervous and I was triggering the behavior, the more I corrected the more he got worse and so on. His mother told me later that he had played basketball and that was the worse thing they could have put him in, because he took all of the yelling and cheering as if he was doing wrong and internalized it. He couldn't separate out cheering and correction so he thought EVERYONE was yelling at him, it made him a nervous wreck. So they put him back into my class, that's when I found out I was triggering him due to him fidgeting when he lined up for drills. So I let him quietly fidget and he did fine.

5) One of the biggest things is to have a strict pattern of running class so there is a sense of order and expectation. I fail here cause I like to be more spontaneous in how I teach. But I'm told more SPED kids need order in the classroom.

6) SPED kids take extra time and they need understanding but they have huge payoffs sometimes. Some times you get diamonds in the rough. One student of mine tries very hard and was basically kicked out of an after school karate program and was told he had special needs like it was a put down (meaning that class wasn't for him). His mother and I had an awkward talk and at that time he wasn't determined to have any special needs. Now about 4 years later the kid is very talented physically, super smart, takes part in my TKD and Presas Arnis and Kobudo programs and is one of my best students. However I've devoted a lot of time to him, before and after class working with him, correcting him (every class over and over), but he needs the attention and the constant correction and praise. Because his brain works so much faster than mine he sees things at times in the Arnis program (as well as the other arts) that I don't and he makes a connection between techniques/concepts etc. etc. and he'll call my attention to it. What can be more rewarding than having your student show you things, it shows that you are getting through to them right?

I hope this helps, sorry for the long post but I wanted to tell you of some of the successes I've had with teaching SPED kids in my program. They are fully integrated and are not taught apart from the rest of the kids. I encourage you to follow through and set up a class working with these kids.

 

[Mark Lynn]

I think this is one of those situations where we understand/get the other persons view but disagree. I tend to think having a specialized professional is most important, which makes sense considering my background. You tend to think the parents can fill that role, and its a chance for them to bond/inclusion, which makes sense considering your background.

I don't actually think either of us are wrong, but the two ideas can't co-exist in the same place that easily, so someone creating a program like this would have to decide which one they want to follow.

Kempo disciple and CB

I think you are both right in a sense. In my work with the school system I see the need for people with more training than I as a sub has in dealing with SPED students. As I said in my previous posts unless we are suffering from a similar challenge than it's hard for us to know what they are going through. I mean I've worked with other teachers who've had to face down kids that are trying to start fights with them, picking up desks or scissors to hit them with, who fly off the handle at a moments notice yelling and cussing them out because they didn't get their way. I've seen the anger issues too (not that anyone had picked up a desk to throw at me or scissors to stab me) but I've seen the cussing, disrespect, and these types of things.

But these kids many times face challenges outside of the school that as a karate instructor we would never be aware of. On top of all of the testing to determine what learning/behavioral challenges they face that is done in school, that again we wouldn't have knowledge about. So having someone there who knows these these types of behaviors and can maybe help de-escalate them could be very useful. But largely be un needed because should we really be teaching them martial arts in the first place?

Likewise in my classes my parents know I'm the teacher and they don't correct or overrule me. However like the mother of one my students (whom I mentioned in a previous post), she will snap her fingers when she sees her son get out of line, and he knows that is his cue to shape up. I might be guiding someone else down the mat at the time and I'll hear a finger snap and know she is correcting her son. I know she is there to support me and the classroom as well as her son so I don't have any issue with her finger snap. Now if parents start trying to correct this stance or that then I put a stop to it.

However to my recollection I've only had one melt down in class in 11 years and that was just a few weeks ago. I took a firm line with a very bright student who felt she should be doing something else and started to argue with me on the floor, trouble is she's a orange belt and 6-8 yr's old and I'm much older and higher ranked. Melt down occurred (she faces very difficult issues in school etc. etc.) and it was nothing I couldn't handle although it was very embarrassing in front of my largest Saturday class with parents watching and all.

If she isn't taught how to correct herself now which is how I believe karate class can really help her, then in a few more years she might become one of the really troubled kids like I see in the SPED programs in high school. Although by the time that comes around karate might not be the best thing for them.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

Hi there, so i'm throwing around the idea, of teaching kids with special needs, both physical and mental, to give them an outlet, exercise, confidence, discipline ext.

I was wondering, who all has experience with this and any suggestions?

One thing I do know, probably foremost, is PATIENCE! I have nephew with autism so I get it. I understand almost every student will need special attention, and for me to work with them as much as possible.

I know to be very positive, and understanding. I also plan on talking with each parent, to understand their diagnosis, and they're strengths and weaknesses personally, so I can treat each student properly.

When dealing with special needs children, you need to find a balance between being patient and understanding, vs being firm and strict on discipline, and a lot of this comes down to the individual you are teaching and knowing how they will react to certain things. For example, some Autistic children respond well to a very firm hand, whereas others will completely shut down. Having an Autistic child shut down in your class can be very dangerous so it's important that you know how the child will react to what you ask them to do.

My number 1 piece of advice if you have a group of special needs children together (particularly if there are on various degrees of the spectrum or have an array of different needs) is to have lots of assistance, either from parents who know the children, or other instructors who are trained for it. This will give you more options when it comes to the activities you can do while still keeping everyone engaged and happy. For example, lets say you have a group with a heavily Autistic child and a child with sever ADHD. The ADHD child is going to want to get going with the activity asap and will only be able to concentrate on what you are saying for 30 seconds or so. By contrast the Autistic child might need you to explain the activity a number of times in order to fully understand what you need to do, and might be a lot slower in completing the activity. Trying to teach both these children side by side is almost impossible, so what you can do (if you have assistance) is explain the activity to the class and let those who understand it get straight on with it, and then have an assistant work with the Autistic child at a slower pace if they need it. Now of course I am generalising here but this gives you an idea of what you might face.

My other big piece of advice is lay down the rules at the start and follow them. This applies to working with children in general but especially children with special needs. A lot of special needs children rely on rules and boundaries to feel safe in the group so it's important that you lay down these rules at the very start of the session, making sure that everyone understands the rules and be firm on enforcing them. If you don't do this and randomly start punishing the children for rules that haven't been explained to them, they won't understand what is happening and cause a whole host of problems.

EDIT: One more thing which I am still learning to do is to adapt your lessons based on who is in the class. For example, when I'm teaching swimming I generally speaking don't allow the children to duck underneath the water inbetween exercises. However, I have a class with a couple of special needs children (1 has ADHD, the other I'm not sure) who would constantly duck underneath the water when I'm trying to explain what I want them to do. Obviously when they are completely submerged they cannot hear me so I have to stop what I'm saying until they surface. This severely disrupts the class and annoys me. I tried going with the whole "no ducking under the water" rule and punishments for anyone who did it, but this didn't really solve the problem. So I turned the ducking under the water into a part of the lesson. After each swimming exercise I gave the chance for all the children to duck underneath the water a couple of times, and after that they were required to listen. By doing this I found that the children stopped ducking underneath the water when I was talking and the lesson went a lot smoother because of it.

 

[jobo]

I originally ranked this as disagree, but then removed the rating after rereading it a few times. I think what I objected to was the phase but special needs is one of those laterday made up categories that seem to include a massive number of " disabilities, as if you were saying it doesn't really exist ("made up") I realized I took your statement wrong (I believe).

The term "special needs" has really been kind of become a general catch phrase that lumps everything together from reading and learning challenges, behavioral challenges, and physical challenges, so I agree the OP might want to focus on who the class is intended for and go from there.

yes you misunderstood me, i think!

the larger issue i was refering to is that its now un PC to refer to someone as having a disability, even more so to reference the actual condition they have, so they lump everyone, n matter what their specific issue is, together and call it " special needs"

so you end up with a classification so wide that it includes every thing from being a bit slow at reading to those with an advanced case. Of cerebral palsy and beyond. They certainly all have special needs, but those needs are so far apart that they cant reasonably be classified together.

if as the op you are going to run a class for,special needs, you need to establish the minimum level of disability you are aiming at , and perhaps set a max level so you can actually cope with them with out having an army of special needs helpers on hand to assist.

 

[CB Jones]

if as the op you are going to run a class for,special needs, you need to establish the minimum level of disability you are aiming at , and perhaps set a max level so you can actually cope with them with out having an army of special needs helpers on hand to assist.

Again I disagree.

I think it is a bad idea to paint yourself into a corner with requirements for severity of disability.

I would suggest take it case by case sitting down with the parent of every special needs student and determining if your class is the right fit.

I would be very careful about excluding kids due to them not being disabled enough. It sounds like a big part of this class will be providing martial arts to children who cannot take in a normal class setting.

 

[jobo]

Again I disagree.

I think it is a bad idea to paint yourself into a corner with requirements for severity of disability.

I would suggest take it case by case sitting down with the parent of every special needs student and determining if your class is the right fit.

I would be very careful about excluding kids due to them not being disabled enough. It sounds like a big part of this class will be providing martial arts to children who cannot take in a normal class setting.

no its sound like the op wants to help people with disabilities who are excluded from the main stream if the people he gets could quite easily attend a normal class then he isn't doing that, is he ? Allowing that it just him, the numbers he can facilitate are quite low, six relatively able children means there is no room for six more deserving of his time children

the para Olympics are quite happy to define the level of disability required to participate, you are not getting in the swimming event, if your only issue is a problem reading

 

[ravenofthewood]

Hi there, so i'm throwing around the idea, of teaching kids with special needs, both physical and mental, to give them an outlet, exercise, confidence, discipline ext.

I was wondering, who all has experience with this and any suggestions?

One thing I do know, probably foremost, is PATIENCE! I have nephew with autism so I get it. I understand almost every student will need special attention, and for me to work with them as much as possible.

I know to be very positive, and understanding. I also plan on talking with each parent, to understand their diagnosis, and they're strengths and weaknesses personally, so I can treat each student properly.

Chrissyp, I just remembered that there is a martial arts school in my area which specializes in taekwondo and hapkido for special needs children. They may be willing to give you advice or suggestions. Their website is www.sirotasalchymy.com