Mary-Ann Toh Binfon M.Ed. Special Education Learning Disabilities Consultant

Give Every Born Child an Equal Opportunity to Education

 Every kid is gifted in some way. Children with disabilities are no exception. Any disability that adversely affects a child’s educational performance is a cause for concern.  Today, children with learning disabilities experience huge learning challenges in education.  Other disabilities such as Emotional and behavior disorder (EBD), Blind/ visually, impaired, autism, deaf and hard of hearing, developmental cognitive disabilities, developmental delays, physically impaired, speech or language impairments, traumatic brain injuries, multiple disabilities, attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder(ADHD), and other health disabilities also compound learning challenges.  The progress of these children may be asynchronous with their typical peers, but it is of dire importance that they achieve excellence both academically and socially.

 T he African community’s response to this has been totally negative and wrong as they have resorted to discrimination, giving up, prejudices, neglect, surrender, and false conclusions in the direction of impossibility.  There are no impossibilities in the human ability. Learning is possible for all. Some people’s ability to learn develops slowly, enhanced positively or negatively by the environment.  Having learning challenges does not mean that one is stupid. We shouldn’t predict children’s outcome by their disability. No excuses! Our kids with disabilities can achieve, special educators can prove that.  All children can, and must succeed academically, socially, behaviorally and move into successful careers. If given the opportunity¸ these children can fully demonstrate their academic and social potential.

 These children need educational health care. Special educators can give them the special education they require to succeed.  They can provide appropriate instructional, and testing accommodations as well as adaptations to enable these children perform as well as their atypical peers in the same grade and age levels.  They also need the community and peers to show support through their attention, love, and parental influence.

 Students with special needs have talents that must be explored. They must be allowed to express their understanding in ways that are personally gratifying to them.  That is not all; special educators can also help these children transition into adulthood and into the community by teaching them basic life skills.

 Special education is still developing in Cameroon.  Due to the lack of special education teachers and the varied learning challenges which is prevalent in schools today, teaching may be very daunting for the general education teachers who must meet the needs of these children.  Basic educational policies are inclusive to meet the demands (Education for All) of the UN, UNESCO and the salamanca conference.

 Inclusive education: Inclusion refers to the participation of students with disabilities alongside their none disabled peers in academic, extracurricular, and other school acitivities(Turbull,2010;Turnbull and Wehmeyer,2010)  Identifying and empowering these students.  Monitoring and tracking students progress  Delivering appropriate instructional and testing accomodaions and adaptations.  Frequent planning meetings with professionals.  Educating teachers on the implementation and follow through.  Providing educational materials and resources.