Special Education & Mental Health

1. Social Emotional and Mental Wellness tools

1.1. All areas of children's development including children's emotions, language, and thinking, are interconnected and developing together.

1.2. Although children's development is affected by a multitude of individual factors, children's relationships with others in their social and emotional learning process are the most critical element.

1.3. Children's emotion and cognition progressed the most in an interconnected and positive environment, which is mainly composed of the family and the school.

1.4. With more connection, there is less need for correction and directing.

2. Executive functioning Strategies

2.1. Executive functions are generally used to describe the specific difficulties that students with learning difficulties face.

2.2. Shifting, inhibiting, and updating are the three essential executive functions for learning across subjects.

2.3. Educators need to change how they think about the challenging behaviours students with learning difficulties. Very often students express their needs through challenging behaviours.

3. Collaboration

3.1. Through collaboration, students, parents, and educators can achieve the best outcome for students - and in the process set a good example of how to prevent and resolve conflicts successfully.

3.2. The student

3.3. parents

3.4. The teacher

3.5. The special education teacher

3.6. The school principal

3.7. The Special Education Advisory Committee

3.8. The district school board or school authority

3.9. The ministry of education

4. Parental Engagement

4.1. The best predictor of student success is the extent to which families encourage learning at home and involve themselves in their child's education.

4.2. Definition of parental engagement: parents and teachers sharing a responsibility to help their children learn and meet educational goals.

4.2.1. Parent involvement

4.2.2. Parent engagement

4.3. Policy: An effective parent engagement policy must acknowledge the importance of parent voice by providing multiple ways for parents to express their perspectives on education and to receive responses from other educational partners.

4.4. The reasons parent engagement in Canadian schools is low

4.4.1. Time constraint

4.4.2. Language barriers

4.4.3. Lack of knowledge

4.4.4. Inconvenience

4.4.5. lack of motivation

4.5. Fulfilling the vision of parent engagement

4.5.1. Strategy 1: School climate

4.5.2. Strategy 2: Eliminating barriers

4.5.3. Strategy 3: Supports for parents

4.5.4. Strategy 4: Parent outreach

5. Assistive Technology

5.1. Assistive technology can support not only the learning experiences of all students in the inclusive classroom, but throughout the students' lives.

5.2. Tons of online apps and platforms could be selected by the educators and students as appropriate technological tools to provide the students more opportunities and scaffold their varied needs.

5.3. Assistive technology can "enhance students' ability to perform and complete tasks with efficiency and independence" (Ontario ministry of Education, 2014).

5.4. Although assistive technology tools are diverse, the main purpose is the same: overcome barriers, increase the students' motivation, and enhance their achievement.

6. ASD toolbox

6.1. ASD is quite popular in modern society. To provide "accessible choice, advocacy, supports, rights and freedoms" (March, 2019) to people with autism in the whole society is the most significant thing we should do.

6.2. The government takes actions. The Ontario Ministry of Education (2020) provides Ontario Autism Program (OAP), plans, and budgets, to offer services and supports to improve outcomes for students with autism.

6.3. The teachers need to use a wide variety of techniques and strategies to construct a diverse and inclusive classroom for students with autism.

6.4. Due to autism population our society becomes more inclusive. Autism should be a normal part of our everyday's life.