During my 19 years of teaching experience, I have taught several children with cerebral palsy. During my first years of teaching, I taught a two-hour Early Childhood class in the morning and the rest of the day I taught in the Resource Room. It was in this morning class that I met (and quickly learned to love) a three year old girl and a three year old boy who both had cerebral palsy. We worked mainly on language development and used a wonderful language development kit supplied by the school. Here are some of the main things I remember about the materials I used in my Early Childhood class:
- Puppets! Children will sometimes respond to a puppet when they will not respond to an adult.
- Songs! Most children will relax and open up to fun songs and learn things effortlessly because they are having fun.
- Hands-on materials! In teaching shapes, for example, the children can experience what a circle and square feel like.
- Games! Using simple games is a great way to practice skills that might become too repetitive otherwise.
- Stories! Simple stories can help to teach concepts.
These are all things that help to make the learning experience fun and rewarding, something that this Early Childhood class looked forward to experiencing.
