STUDENTS with special needs struggle to overcome their learning difficulties because the current curriculum fails to take their disabilities into consideration, according to a report in Al-Riyadh daily. To improve classroom conditions and increase opportunities for special needs students, experts say they should be provided with a better learning environment and teachers should be given special courses so they can effectively teach such students. According to family counselor and human skills development trainer Modi Al-Shammary, the majority of teachers in the Kingdom's schools lack the necessary skills to deal with disabled students. Her solution: train teachers to identify students with learning disabilities so they can accommodate their needs. "Each school should have a special education teacher who can identify students with disabilities and learning difficulties. Teachers should be equipped with various strategies and methods to get information across to disabled students and help them understand the lesson being taught in the classroom," she said. Dr. Maha Al-Shiha, assistant professor, School of Special Education, King Saud University, said a learning difficulty is permanent and affects a student's performance both inside and outside the classroom. "It is important for each school to have a learning difficulty expert to help students in this category. Equally important is the Ministry of Health's role in helping any family who has a son or daughter suffering from this problem," she said. She called on the Ministry of Education to introduce drastic changes to the current curricula offered in public schools and educational institutions. "More emphasis should be given to teaching skills and helping students acquire skills, not information because skills will help students get any information they want," she said. Early intervention Al-Shiha cited cases of elementary grade students with learning disabilities struggling academically when they joined middle school but the latter lacked teachers qualified to instruct special needs students. "Those students are facing more challenges because they cannot find support and help at the middle school level. If these students are not helped to overcome the difficulties they are facing, we are setting them up for failure," she said. Manal Al-Ajmi, a faculty member of Special Education and Learning Difficulties School, Princess Noura Bint Abdulrahman University, said parents who have children with such difficulties should be required to take courses so they can better cater to the needs of their sons and daughters. School teachers should be required to take similar courses, she said. "Both parents and teachers should cooperate and exert great efforts to help a student overcome the learning difficulties he is encountering at the elementary grade level. Improvement might be slow but it will eventually happen. It just needs patience," she said. Equal opportunities Alya Al-Bazee is the director of special education development program at Tatweer Company for Educational Services, the company responsible for implementing King Abdullah Bin Abdulaziz Program for Developing the General Education System. She talked about the importance of providing equal educational opportunities to all students. "The government program for developing the education system in the country focuses on mixing students having learning challenges with public school students," she added.
