| Roughly 7 million children in the U.S. receive special education services under a decades-old federal law — or did, until the pandemic began. Many of those services slowed or stopped when schools physically shut down in spring 2020. Modified instruction, behavioral counseling, and speech and physical therapy disappeared or were feebly reproduced online, for three, six, nine months. In some places, they have yet to fully resume. For many children with disabilities, families say this disruption wasn’t just difficult. It was devastating. Kate Maglothin in Waterford, Mich., says for her and her 7-year-old son, Finn, learning from home without extra support was “mentally and physically and emotionally draining.” “I just watched my child not learning and going backwards,” remembers Rachael Berg, a mother in Anne Arundel County, Md., whose 6-year-old daughter, Maddie, has an intellectual disability and attention deficit disorder. “I’m just sad for her.” |
585-730-8888
ddemarle@yahoo.com
