Supporting children with a disability and/ or additional need

How do we make inclusion a reality?

Being inclusive and wanting to ensure we meet the needs of children with a disability and/ or additional need is a common professional value for teachers and educators. It is also a very core requirement of our work under legislative, quality and learning frameworks. It can however be a challenge to fit in to our already full ‘bucket’ of teaching tasks. In this blog, we discuss making inclusive practice part of our everyday and in doing so supporting all children to thrive in our classrooms.

Supporting children with a disability and/ or additional needs to fully participate in our classrooms means knowing and understanding their disability and the way it impacts that child’s experience in the classroom. It involves making reasonable adjustments and differentiating teaching to ensure that each child is able to reach their full potential and can access to the same learning opportunities. It can be challenging and create additional work but often has some side line effects of making learning more accessible for everyone.

Keys to success

There are a range of strategies that can really support you as a teacher or educator to make the process of including children with a disability

• Finding out about the identified disability or need. This information will be available through associations, early intervention specialist and allied health professionals that work with the child
• Develop collaborative relationships and partnerships with families where there is a clear understanding that you are both working together to achieve the best outcomes for their child.
• Encourage families and other services in your community a child with a disability and/ or additional to reach out well in advance of enrolment to allow for extended orientation, inclusion support plans to be developed, applications for funding or others supports or adjustments to physical spaces to be actioned.
• Draw on early intervention supports to help with advice, developing an inclusion plan and funding.
• Work with allied health professionals that support the child and family to learn about how this child is impacted by their condition and what strategies might be helpful in minimising stresses, triggers and additional trauma.
• Make any reasonable adjustments to the program and the environment that better accommodate the child’s needs and support their wellbeing, learning and development.

What does this look like in practice?

As we mentioned earlier all of these inclusive practices represent additional tasks and so it can often seem overwhelming to fit them in on top of an already busy day. The main message here is invest the time, especially early on, as it can really make the whole process run more smoothly and lead to improved outcomes for not only the child but for teachers and educators as well.

In practical terms, find some time before a shift or after or during a quiet time of the day, break things up into small actions and in doing set yourself up for success. Record the things that you are doing as part of your documenting or assessing and planning for learning.

The other key practice is a focus on relational pedagogy or relationships and people first. Everything else is easier is we have developed a strong relationship with the family and draw on their expertise about their child and their experiences with their child. Good relationships will also help you to support your work when challenges arise.

Managing challenging behaviours

Often the biggest hurdle we face when including children with a disability or additional needs is encountering some very challenging behaviours, especially when children are new to your service or school. Children can struggle with managing stresses and triggers and regulating their emotional responses. The problem of settling in can often be magnified if this is the first time the child has had experiences outside of the family.

Some things that can really help include:

• meet with families and create strong, reciprocal relationships where it is clear that you are all working together for the best opportunities for their child
• developing a plan that identifies possible challenges, triggers and stresses and strategies on minimising exposure and actions to take when this occurs. Identify areas that will require resourcing and seek support from your organisation to get it. This is a requirement of the Disability Discrimination Act.

All of these options may not be at your disposal and if not adapting some of these approaches may still be helpful. It is a good time to remind families that things like a prolonged transition or partial enrolment can be of benefit in helping their child to experience less stress and help improve the prospects for a long and healthy relationship with your service or school.

Supporting learning, development and wellbeing

Planning for adjustments and differentiation should also be a part of the assessment and planning or teaching and learning cycle you have in place for all children. Learning in relation to the curriculum or learning frameworks should be the focus.

Consider gathering information as about the child and their disability or need as the first part of the cycle. This includes the information you get from health professionals and families. Assess and analyse where the child is at in relation to syllabus or learning outcomes. Then plan experiences and activities, adjustments and differentiated strategies as part of your program and implement with an awareness that you may need to modify depending on the child’s response.

Finally, evaluate and critically reflect on whether your information was accurate, learning occurred, the child progressed and the experiences were at the right level. Consider some bigger picture critical reflections about how the adjustments supported meaningful participation and f there were some biases or other unjust practices occurring.

In summary, embrace the process as part of your core work not necessarily as additional work and remember the difference you make to children’s lives when work in inclusive ways.

Critical reflection provocations

Below a few critical reflection provocations for working collaboratively as a team to consider how you could improve the ways you support children with a disability and/ or additional need at your school or service.

1. What is your current approach to including children with a disability? Is it onerous? Are there tasks or actions that you can change to make them more efficient and effective?
2. What is your approach to ensuring you know and understand each child’s disability and/ or additional need?
3. How do you integrate the information gathering, analysis, planning and evaluation into your assessment and planning processes? Is there room for improvement?

Support to improve

If you would like to know about how to support children with a disability to fully participate in your program why not purchase our Supporting children with a disability and or additional needs and Strategies to idendtify, communicate and plan for specific needs courses or save $40 and buy them as a bundle: Inclusive practice. You might also like to listen to our Unpacking theory and research- Inclusion podcast episode and read our previous blog Authentic inclusive practice. If you need some additional support guiding and managing challenging behaviours take a look at our course: Supporting children’s behaviour

Related Early Years Learning Hub resources;

• Assessment and planning bundle
• Learning frameworks resources