Special Rights for Special Needs?  The 3 D’s

Each and every child in a class deserves individual attention and an individualized learning plan, but there must be an awarding of uniquely designed rights for children who have diagnosed Disabilities, developmental Delays, or Differences in learning. Some children arrive in the classroom with diagnosed conditions of any of these 3 D’s, while some of these conditions will be discovered by a teacher’s careful assessment of each child using observation, collaboration, documentation, and referral.

We have gone through many changes over the generations in the way educators talk about, look at, treat, and work with children who have one or more of these three D’s. We’ve ignored them, institutionalized them, experimented on them, drugged them, developed therapies for them, excluded them, included them, and renamed them.

In this blog I will refer to the children as 3D Learners and their rights as 3D Rights.

I underline the word diagnosed, because it’s important for classroom teachers NOT to DIAGNOSE or give labels to any of the D’s without professional determination of a child’s individual issues. There is a careful system of determining need and diagnosis and the preschool teacher and the parent are only the first responders. The process begins with observation – non-judgmental observation that does not compare one child to another in any way; moves to collaboration with parent or trusted co-worker; includes documentation of observation; and ends with referral to a professional specialized diagnostician.

It’s Hard – If possible, every 3D child should have his needs met by accommodations within the curriculum. These may include hiring of extra staff or specialized therapists, making facility renovations, altering space and equipment, and providing specialized training for existing staff.  I have encountered situations in which a program cannot afford the special accommodations needed, but every program – public, private, faith-based, or government-funded, should make every effort to grant these rights to 3D children through the use of their own curriculum.

And Sometimes It’s Too Hard – If ALL options have been offered, a program may need to use its referral list for parents to find a program that meets the unique needs of their 3D child.

Sometimes a 3D child will have behaviors that are difficult. If ALL options have been used, when an individual child’s behavior caused by a 3D, does harm to other children or the curricular accommodations being made cause disruption of the learning process in the community, a teacher should realize this and suggest to administrators that her community cannot award the special rights needed with the quality the diagnosed disable, delayed, or learning-different child deserves.

Next Blog: The Early Education Child’s Bill of Rights