This SPED teacher finds ways to teach students with special needs amid pandemic
When the pandemic hit the country, all students were forced to attend classes online — a difficult setup for learners with special needs who are prone to disruptions.
In response to this challenge, Faye Agati, a head special education program (SPED) teacher in Diliman Preparatory School, came up with a solution: encourage parents to be their “right hand.”
“I provided options for parents so that their children will still be able to continue learning,” Agati told the Educators’ Diaries in a text interview.
Different strategies
To make the parent-child collaboration work, Agati guided the parents on how they would utilize various teaching materials at home.
“I explicitly informed them that they are very important in making telehealth successful since at home, they will be the one to “facilitate” lessons and activities,” Agati said.
Teletherapy, defined by Mayo Clinic as the “use of digital information and communication technologies to access health services remotely,” is the resort of many SPED teachers in the pandemic where most face-to-face therapy sessions are prohibited.
Agati stated that parents, at first, had a hard time in executing such strategy, citing the internet connectivity issues and other commitments that they are faced with.
“Some families do not have access to gadgets such as desktop computers, laptops or even a good working Internet connection; some families do not allow their children to use gadgets,” she added.
In a survey done by the Council for the Welfare of Children — Sub-committee for Children with Disabilities, 51.8 percent of 39,534 Filipino respondents who are with learners with special needs said that they don’t have access to educational services.
When these challenges arise, Agati was able to resolve them by offering a meeting with the children’s instructor and providing them with home instruction programs on how they can supervise their trainees.
While such strategies may work for some, Agati acknowledged that they may not work for others, citing the importance of differentiated instruction and Universal Design for Learning, the current framework for education.
Agati assesses her learners using the tool she called SPINs or strengths, preferences, interests, and needs which she uses to identify what learning strategies are best for them.
“When teachers are aware of the learners’ SPINs it will be easier to offer the mode of instruction where the child will benefit more — face-to-face, online-modular, via radio/TV, etc,” she said.
Gov’t interventions
In its part of addressing the challenges of learners with special needs, The Department of Education (DepEd) created the Basic Education Learning Continuity Plan in the Time of Covid-19.
The document stated that “adaptations” such as (close) captioning, transcribing to braille, sign-language interpretation, or different format options could be utilized as substitutes for online classes for students with special needs.
According to data from the DepEd, there were 138,173 enrollees under the SPED program in the school year 2019–2020.
Of these, the majority came from basic education which comprised 124,993 learners, followed by junior high school with 11,472 learners and senior high school with 1,708.
While there are 8,523 schools that offer the program — 6,072 in basic education and 2,451 in secondary education.
In 2018, there were 2,601 teachers in the program in basic education and only 284 in secondary.
The education department has yet to issue the latest statistics on the SPED program for the school year 2020–2021.
On virtual setup
For Agati, remote learning may have been tough for her students, but it is “feasible and effective.”
Still, she believes that the current setup has its failings and that it should not remain the standard for education.
“I think, learners with needs will benefit from hybrid classes — online and face-to-face. Parents must be given choices on how they want their children to learn,” Agati said.
