How do we define love? Love has different meanings based on who defines it and to whom it will be defined. For a mother with a child with special needs, it means the whole world to the child. A child with special needs has different developmental milestones, interests, capabilities, and attention every step of the way.
Developmental milestones are guidelines that enable parents, guardians, and professionals to monitor a child’s skills according to other children of the same age. The development of a child can be described as the physical, mental, and social development which is achieving skills according to the expected timeframe. Every child is unique and develops at his/her own pace, however, most children develop new skills in a predictable order. When one skill is developed, it allows for a more difficult skill to be learned.
Everyday events and routines can be great opportunities for a child to develop interests and learn new things. When a child is learning new skills, it’s good to have a lot of opportunities to practice and practice their skills in consistent ways with the needed supervision and guidance from parents, guardians, and even health care providers.
We support our learners with special needs by providing quality education and appropriate needs. School administrators and DepEd officials are actively involved and work collaboratively with other stakeholders to come up with the best programs, projects, and activities (PPAs) suited to their needs. Some of these PPAs are school-based initiatives to support disability events and celebrations like women’s disability month, world autism awareness day, national disabilities and rehabilitation week, white cane safety day, and cerebral palsy awareness and protection week. There are also other activities that highlight the skills and contributions of learners with special needs like sports-related activities and festivals of talents.
Teachers go the extra mile to give the best to our dear learners. Currently, the Schools Division of Meycauayan has six elementary schools and two junior high schools offering special education programs. To continue its commitment, more schools are expressing their intentions to offer special education programs. At present, the City of Meycauayan Vocational Senior High School is already validated by the DepEd Region III for its application to offer a special education program in senior high school. Once approved it will be the first senior high school in the entire Region III which will offer a special education program.
Other elementary schools and even junior high schools are also in the process of preparing the needed documents in order to complete the initial preparation for the application. It shows the special love of the department, community, and other stakeholders for our learners with special needs. These learners are gifts from above who deserve our special love.
Let us work hand in hand to love them without measure, no conditions and boundaries and prepare them for the real world equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills for them to become functional members of our society and blessings to our community.
CINDY D. OLIVA
Education Program Supervisor
