ABA Therapy
Understanding behaviour, teaching skills
- Limited or no functional communication of wants and needs
- Repeated behaviours that interfere with learning or family life
Teaching that adapts to the learner
Special Education
Special education provides customised instruction for students with special needs, addressing a range of disabilities and learning difficulties through individualised teaching, adapted materials and pacing set by the child rather than the curriculum.
- Session
- Typically 45 minutes
- Setting
- One-to-one
- Starts with
- Functional assessment
What it is
Understanding special education
Special education is instruction designed specifically for students with special needs. Rather than expecting the child to adapt to a fixed method, the method adapts — in content, pace, presentation and assessment — to how that particular child learns.
Teaching is built on a detailed profile of strengths and difficulties: where the child sits in reading, writing and number, how they attend, what they retain, and which channels — visual, auditory, hands-on — carry information most reliably for them.
Alongside academic skills, special education develops the learning behaviours that make school workable: organisation, task persistence, following routine, and knowing how to ask for help. These often matter as much as content mastery.
Special Educators
Provide individualised academic instruction, adapted materials and learning strategies for children with learning difficulties.
Who it's for
Children who may benefit from special education
This is not an exhaustive list, and no single item on it means your child needs therapy. The assessment establishes what is actually going on.
- 01
Specific learning disabilities
Difficulties in reading, writing or mathematics that are out of step with the child's overall ability.
- 02
Reading and writing difficulty
Persistent problems with decoding, spelling, letter formation or written expression.
- 03
Intellectual disability
Adapted curriculum and functional academic goals matched to developmental level.
- 04
Autism and ADHD
Structured, low-distraction teaching with the visual supports and routine these learners often need.
- 05
School readiness
Pre-academic foundations for children preparing to enter or return to mainstream school.
- 06
Inclusion support
Targeted help for children in mainstream classrooms who need adapted material to keep pace.
Signs to look for
What parents often notice first
Children develop at different rates, and a single item here is rarely meaningful on its own. It is a pattern across several — particularly one that persists — that is worth raising with a professional.
- Reading, writing or number skills well behind classmates
- Reverses letters or numbers well past the age this is typical
- Avoids or becomes distressed by homework and school tasks
- Bright and capable verbally, but this does not show in written work
- Loses track of multi-step instructions
- Effort and outcome are badly mismatched — works hard, achieves little
- Difficulty retaining what appeared to be learned the day before
- School reports repeated concern about pace or attention
Benefits
What this therapy works towards
Goals are always individual to the child. These are the areas of change the discipline is designed to produce.
Foundational academics
Systematic, multisensory teaching of reading, writing and number at the child's actual level.
Learning strategies
Concrete methods for organising, remembering and approaching work that the child can use independently.
Restored confidence
Children who have experienced repeated academic failure re-engage when work is pitched where they can succeed.
Classroom participation
The skills to take part in group instruction rather than sit outside it.
Functional literacy and numeracy
For children on an adapted curriculum, the practical reading and number skills that daily life requires.
School coordination
Goals aligned with what the child's school is working on, so the two settings pull in the same direction.
The process
How a programme runs, step by step
- 01
Educational assessment
Assessment of current academic levels, learning style, attention and processing to establish a precise starting point.
- 02
Individualised education plan
Specific, measurable goals across academic and functional domains, agreed with parents and reviewed on a set cycle.
- 03
Adapted teaching
Multisensory instruction, adapted materials and pacing set by the learner, delivered one to one.
- 04
Learning strategy instruction
Explicit teaching of organisation, memory and task-approach strategies rather than leaving them to be picked up.
- 05
Progress monitoring
Regular measurement against IEP goals so teaching responds to what is and isn't working.
- 06
School and home liaison
Coordination with teachers and practical guidance for parents supporting learning at home.
What to expect
Inside a session
- Session length
- Typically 45 minutes
- Frequency
- Set after assessment, based on need
- Setting
- One-to-one in a low-distraction learning space
- Parent involvement
- Parents receive home strategies and progress updates
Questions
About special education
If your question isn't answered here, call the centre — it is usually the quickest way to get a straight answer.
Parent resources
Reading that may help
Related therapies
Often provided alongside this
Where a child works across more than one discipline, goals are coordinated between the therapists involved.
