“That student is impossible—they won’t do anything you ask.” In a perfect world, all students with multiple exceptionalities would be well understood and effectively supported by all members of their education and treatment team. In reality, that’s rarely the case, despite the best intentions on the part of school personnel and medical providers and the children themselves. All professionals need to understand the individual complexity of children with multiple disabilities, meet them where they are at, and have a variety of personalized strategies for helping them to learn, grow, and develop. These ten guidelines provide professionals a road map for what to consider when working with complex kids with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders. “Impossible” kids become kids with remarkable potential when adults change their lens and their own behaviors.
1. COMPLEX STUDENTS NEED US TO OBSERVE AND LEARN ABOUT EACH ONE. Individuate them from other students. All three of these conditions can look very different in individual students and when students have a combination of neurodevelopmental conditions, it’s vitally important to understand that particular student, their mind, and what works and doesn’t work for them. Avoid generalizing and making assumptions about students with dyslexia, ADHD, and autism. Students with multiple diagnoses are always complex students and it will take time to get to know each one. As the saying goes, “If you’ve met with one person with autism, you’ve met one person with autism.” That is infinitely more true for students with autism, dyslexia, and ADHD. A good question to ask ourselves is, “How does this child’s exceptionalities affect them? How do they manifest in this child?”
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