The Gift of Time

Special needs children are the children who need the most time to process input but wind up with the least amount of time. Their schedules are rushed as they have services embedded within other activities. They are moving in and out of classes frequently and often have to catch up with what the others have been doing. As a result, they are constantly being moved along by their support person or by the teacher. These well meaning adults, to support the children, will assume responsibilities. They may gather the books. They may clean up the area. They may go back to retrieve forgotten items. If the adult does not do the necessary step, he will direct the child to do so. That is, the adult will assume the responsibility to think about what needs to be done and then direct the child. For example, the adult might say: get your jacket/ pick up your books/ pick up the paper from the floor, etc. All of these directives are offered so that the adult can keep the child moving along as is necessary per the schedule.

Most often adults will give a child less than five seconds to process. Our students might need as long as 45 seconds to respond. It is a length of time that is never given as even if the adult gives that time, another child might jump in and respond for him. For sure, our students need 15 to 20 seconds to process the input.

So… the gift we can give a special needs child is the gift of time. Time to process what needs to be done. Time to process language input. If given time, the child will be more likely to realize that he is expected to assume the responsibility for the task. If given time, the child will be more likely to assume the responsibility to do the task.