Learning disabilities are very common in young kids. Research shows that 1 in every 5 children in the United States has a learning or attention issue.
It can be hard for children who have been diagnosed with a learning disability to learn in a traditional setting. This is because their brain learns differently than other children’s. By helping them learn in a way that works for them, you are helping them achieve success and engagement in their education.
Online games are great toys for kids with special needs. Online games can engage children in different ways, and help them learn the skills they might not be getting in school. Keep reading to find out the different ways that special needs activities can help your student.
Social Skills Toys for Kids with Special Needs
Children with special needs sometimes have a hard time learning social skills. For many kids, social etiquette and manners aren’t always explicitly taught. These are skills that get picked up naturally, through watching others and participating in verbal and nonverbal communication.
However, kids with special needs have a harder time learning these skills on their own. Especially for children on the autism spectrum, social skills will need to be intentionally taught instead of intuited.
That’s where interactive online games come in. Many of these games make it easy to teach social skills to children with special needs. These games can help children understand how certain social etiquette might be appropriate for some situations and not for others.
Online games also help children learn to identify different emotions in others. Being able to identify emotions and know how to react to them are essential social skills for children.
Online games can help children associate words and emotions with images. This makes them a great way to teach and then reinforce social skills education.
Verbal Skills Toys for Kids with Special Needs
Some children with learning disabilities struggle with speaking or are nonverbal altogether. Being nonverbal is highly associated with autism, but it can occur with other learning disabilities, too.
Some online games can help children practice communication. Communication can be verbal or nonverbal, and online games give your child the opportunity to practice both.
Even if your child is one that will never be completely verbal, these communication games are still extremely helpful. They can help your child develop other ways of communicating their needs and feelings to the outside world.
Online games and other special needs activities use visual stimuli, which can be useful for children with autism. It helps make the associations more concrete in their minds.
It is also important that when children make these associations, they are rewarded for them. Computer games do this by rewarding students for every level they pass or lesson they complete.
Special Needs Activities for Students with Dyslexia
Dyslexia is a learning disability where letters and numbers on a page become scrambled in your child’s mind. This can make it really difficult to learn to spell, read, and write. It can make math more difficult, too.
It’s important that children with dyslexia get the assistance they need to learn. However, not all of these children with dyslexia have been properly diagnosed.
Without a diagnosis, these kids sometimes think they aren’t good at reading and writing. As a result, they end up being less and less engaged in school.
But this doesn’t have to be the case.
Fortunately, there are a number of online games that can serve as very useful toys for kids with special needs. These games incorporate pictures, videos, and text that is read aloud so that kids can form other associations with the words on the page.
These games can make learning easier for kids with dyslexia, and it can also reinforce the idea that learning is fun.
Special Needs Activities for Students with ADHD
Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) are common learning disabilities for kids. Traditional school can be a hard way for students with ADD/ADHD to learn because it requires them to focus for long periods of time.
Online games can be a great way for children to learn some skills like basic math, reading, and writing. Instead of asking them to focus for long periods of time, it lets them engage with a game. Games are structured using points and rewards systems, giving the children a reason to stay engaged.
Many students with learning disabilities struggle with one area but do really well with another. In these cases, online games can be really useful. Online games tend to use multisensory cues, allowing students to draw associations between their strong points and their weak points.
Activities of Daily Living
Activities of Daily Living (ADL) is a phrase you might have heard before. It refers to everyday actions that might require a little bit of extra instruction for children with special needs.
These activities include things like bath time, getting dressed, or meals with the family. Online games can help reinforce what behaviors are appropriate for each activity.
As a parent or educator, you have likely gone through these things in person with your child. But online games help to reinforce these habits directly. Other ways to address ADL include setting up a designated chore wheel or building extra time into the schedule for the successful completion of these activities.
It’s important that you find an ADL strategy that works best for your child. ADL is essential for your child’s self-care and health.
Online Games as a Resource
Learning disabilities can make it really hard to learn the same ways that other kids do. But that just means that it is important to find a learning strategy that works best for your child. Online games and other toys for kids with special needs may be the answer you have been looking for. Explore your options in our Blog section today.
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