Distance learning challenge greater for students with disabilities
Posted November 2020
By Olivia Eyestone
Cub Reporter
Students with disabilities are navigating distance learning, while teachers work on new solutions to help further disabled children’s education in a pandemic, while parents struggle to balance work and their child’s education.
Covid-19 has affected the lives of students all across the United States and the world. However, children with disabilities, who rely heavily on their schools for extra programs and help, have had their lives flipped upside down. In school, disabled students receive a lot of one-on-one attention, in a small classroom setting. In-person schooling also provided disabled children more chances to gain the necessary individual life skills they need. But online learning has made the process of keeping these students in a structure that helps them continue to succeed much more difficult. It is harder for these student’s parents to take over as co-teacher and help their children navigate this new life, while also balancing other commitments.
"Variation in motivational disposition and self-regulatory capacities make online learning more challenging for some students than others. Those who need additional structure will struggle to remain engaged and focused when learning from home. In the classroom, collective conditions of group cognition and social learning can offer momentum and augment attention and participation, whereas in home isolation the individual working on their laptop or computer bears more responsibility for learning motivation and attention to lessons.” - Rebecca B. Reynolds, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University
Nevertheless, schools across the United States have come a long way in virtual instruction since last year’s spring semester. Students are getting an education that is much more similar to in-school learning. The problem is can disabled students receive and perform well online in the extra programs they need, such as IEP?
“His teachers and school really did an admirable job this spring," stated foster parent Kevin McGilly to The Washington Post. "But it paled as a substitute for the level of education engagement that is really required for this group of children."
McGilly's son struggled to feel confident in his online classroom and adapt to distance learning. Special Education covers a lot of ground for many different kinds of disabilities. So, of course, moving everything online is a touch-and-go process of changing laws on IEPs or setting up online Zoom calls for speech therapy. The teachers and parents of special education students have worked tirelessly across the country to build new systems for the students and spread information so every family can provide for their child.