Children With Special Care
Those children who, due to their specific situation, manifest special needs that are different from other children, must be cared for with a series of special care. They are children with special health needs, but they are also children with learning disabilities who have gone through trauma, developmental delays, etc.
What children require special care?
Any child with a particular condition has the right to receive special care. Furthermore, the variability of groups of children in need of special care is truly wide.
For example, it refers to those children who manifest learning disabilities, needing special educational attention, to those children with special health needs (NINEAS).
This last group of children who require this special care are those born with a cognitive impairment, a syndrome or a chronic or terminal illness. According to Eliane Tatsh, Ivone Evangelista and Andressa da Silveira, these children have demands for continuous care of a temporary or permanent nature. Furthermore, they depend on a multiplicity of special social and health services.
Support Recommendations for Families
The American psychologist Nicholas Martin interviewed support groups formed by parents of children with special needs, and asked them what resources are the most appropriate, at a reasonable cost, for the care of these children. These were his most outstanding recommendations:
- Cooperative of parents. Find out and look for existing associations or support networks in your area to share the help.
- ‘Respite services’ available. Some agencies offer this type of service to help families who need a short period of rest.
- Specific and qualified nurseries for children with special needs.
Children with special needs in the classroom
The concept of ‘pupils with special educational needs’ was first defined in the Warnock Report, produced by the British Education Commission. In this report, it is understood that these students are those who have learning difficulties that make it necessary to have special educational resources to address them.
Now, the concept refers to that different performance presented by the student with SEN (Special Educational Needs), which may be lower or higher than that of the majority of the group. However, as the psychologists Mónica Montes and María Auxilio Castro express, the educational process of these students will develop based on their abilities and possibilities, not their limitations.
For them, the concept of students with special educational needs contributes to reconsidering the education of students with difficulties. Therefore, the intervention carried out with these students will focus on their curricular competencies, not on their disabilities.
Children who require special care suffer more bullying than the rest
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), children with disabilities suffer acts of violence almost four times more frequently than those without disabilities. Today, it is a reality that children with special needs are one of the groups that receive the most harassment and, according to the WHO, these are the most common risk factors:
- Social stigma.
- Discrimination.
- Ignorance regarding disability.
- Lack of support for their caregivers.
Finally, it is a fact that children who require special care face great challenges, as do their families and caregivers. Therefore, they must receive all the necessary support to help them in their day-to-day lives and, thus, facilitate the development of these children as best as possible so that, ultimately, they achieve a quality life.
