The New Normal and Individuals with Special Needs
The entire world has been affected from Covid-19 crisis, not only us. Even though it took some time, we managed to adapt to mandatory changes that started with epidemic. And adaptation is the thing that makes us overcome this epidemic with minimum harm done. But as we said, Covid-19 affected everyone. You may not have seen what’s the situation in quarantine and the following ‘’new normal’’ times for individuals with special needs, who especially has cognitive differences. It’s safe to say that it’s not good. Daily life in new normal is not even in its final form for the public, let alone for individuals with special needs. We can’t expect the methods and rules which made for them to be complete or useful. Or even comfortable for them, for we need new methods for a new way of life. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. We, as people who takes care of individuals with special needs, can improvise or develop some ideas of our own.
Different Approaches for Different Situations
Quarantine is a different life style. Most people easily adapts to it but for individuals with special needs, whose already struggles even before the pandemic, adaptation may be a hard thing to do.
When creating a method or setting a rule, it’s obvious what’s to consider. The most important one is defining for whom these methods or rules are created for. Let’s take the mask obligation in public transport for instance: Some people feels like they can’t breathe with a mask and this situation bothers them. But they can overcome their disturbances and may force themselves to do it. That’s not always the case for individuals with special needs. They may not make a habit of constantly wearing a mask or maintaining social distance. That’s because they can’t grasp exactly what’s happening. Therefore it’s not possible for us to find a method that can help them understand the problems which new normal brings with itself in a short time. We have high hopes that some methods will be found sooner or later. But that doesn’t mean we have nothing in our hands for now. There are still a lot of things we can do to make this process easier; like playing their favourite songs when they wear a mask or giving little motivational prizes when they maintain social distance with others. These little tricks will mostly work. But you should keep in mind that we’re talking about an individual with special needs. They can adapt to this situation harder than you think; even if you did everything right. Don’t let this struggle affect you in a negative way. Keep your hopes high; they too can overcome this process eventually.
Don’t Underestimate the Risks
We know that some individuals with special needs have low body resistance. This difference in their physiology brings the necessity to act extra carefully. We should take some precautions for them, as they can’t obey the new rules as much as we do. Their family members and caretakers should be extra cautious. This extra work may exhaust you but you should remember that individuals with special needs are our main focus. Keeping in touch with the families in the same situation is probably best thing you can do for yourself. Having some exchange of ideas or basic social activities with these families and experts who work on this area is also a very safe and sound option for you. The individual with special needs also can easily communicate with these people, for they care for these risks as much as you do. As long as we are careful, having social interactions is refreshing for all of us.
Individual with special needs may have their habits or favourite activities outside of their homes, which they cannot do anymore. You should think creative in this scenario. You can replicate some of these some activities, such as getting a little slide in your home for example. You don’t even have to buy it; you can build one simple slide with some bed sheets and pillows.
Importance of Communicating with Experts
We still can’t fully understand this pandemic crisis. We don’t have any command of all the new and changing rules. Situation for individuals with special needs is even worse at this point, because we’re not quite sure how we can help them, what they live because of this situation; whether they are children or adults. Experts who try to examine this situation fully for them are very important for us. What they can accomplish for individuals with special needs is much more than our little suggestions. They can find the answers for a lot of things such as how this pandemic will affect individuals with special needs, what can you do to prevent this impacts, what can you do for yourselves.
Giving special care, empathizing and staying healthy by being more careful are the most important things that we should do. For more than this, you can apply to experts in our site.
