Teaching Language to the Special Children: Challenges and Possibilities

Abstract

<jats:p>Since communicating people is one of the first and foremost obstacles to autistic children, it is a basic need for them to get vigilant and appropriate nurture for language acquisition. Moreover, to develop the language skills of special children appropriately, it is essential to ensure effective language teaching. The primary objective of this study was to identify the challenges that the teachers face in the class and to bring out the possibilities of teaching the mother tongue to the special children as a part of special education. As language learning is the leading step of special education, the study aims to contribute to the field by pointing out the challenges and the possibilities. The study was conducted by collecting data from three different schools of special children by following a qualitative method. The findings revealed that inadequate understanding, proper classroom facilities, lack of awareness and insufficient language training created a great challenge for the teachers in teaching the language to the special children. The study also exposed that special training, a well-decorated classroom, regular speech therapy, and change of outlook minimized the challenges and made language teaching more effective. KEYWORDS: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Special Education Needs (SEN), Communication, Language Proficiency</jats:p>