Classroom Help for a Child Who Is Hard to Understand

The teacher says he knows the answer but will not speak. Or she speaks and nobody in the row behind understands her. Or instructions go in and nothing comes back, so it looks like he was not listening. A speech or language difficulty in class is often recorded as attitude. It is usually a listening or speaking problem wearing a behaviour report.

You do not need a disability certificate for the small changes below. Seating, slower instructions and a way to ask for a repeat are teaching, not a legal concession. The wider school page is classroom support. This one is specifically for speech and language.

What to ask for this week

• Face the teacher. Sit where they can see the mouth, not the corridor, not the back. Children with glue ear or unclear speech use eyes as well as ears. Hearing first: signs of a hearing problem
• One instruction at a time. “Open your book” then wait. A list of four is a memory test, not a language task
• Write it or picture it. The board, a sticky note, a simple visual. Spoken-only classrooms punish language delay
• A sentence they are allowed to use: “I need that again, slowly.” Practise it at home until it is boring
• Do not force a performance. Reading aloud to a silent class is a fluency exam. Let them read to the teacher, or to a partner, until talking in the group is actually possible
• Time to start, not a shorter test. Extra time to begin is often more useful than extra time at the end

Give the teacher one example, not a diagnosis: “He copies from the board if he sits at the front and you pause after each line.” That is usable on Monday. “He has a language delay” is not.

What is not a classroom problem

A child who does not hear is not a lazy listener. Glue ear after winter colds is common and treatable. Ask for a hearing check before anyone writes “does not follow instructions” into a permanent file. Hearing and speech.

A child who understands Urdu at home and is examined in English is not delayed in both until you have counted both. Bilingualism does not cause speech delay.

Selective mutism — a child who talks at home and is silent at school — is anxiety, not stubbornness. Selective mutism.

Paperwork, later

A short, plain summary of goals after an assessment can go to the teacher with your say-so. A formal IEP-style document is separate work, explained first. What an IEP is. In Punjab, a disability certificate matters for some schemes and admissions, not for asking a teacher to pause.

We can help you write the three-line message. We speak to a school only if you ask. Letter to school, for schools, classroom skills with Akasha.

Copying from the board is its own bottleneck — copying from the board. Extra time in a class test is a teacher decision; extra time in a board paper is not something we will invent a rule for. That is extra time in Pakistani board exams.

A consultation is Rs 1,500 and lasts up to 50 minutes, Monday to Friday, 2pm to 6pm, in Model Town or online. Book.