Two mentally challenged children are not alike. Mental retardation is a relative thing and is directly related to the degree of damage to the brain. There are five categories recognized by WHO. They are Border line, Mild, Moderate, Severe and Profound. For a Border line child, it is difficult to understand concepts like time concept, money concept, weight or height concept, color concept and concept of cooperation. But he is ok in ADL i.e. activities for daily living. But if we take the case of a child at the other end of the spectrum i.e. Profound category, than he can not perform ADL. He may not perceive pain, he can not communicate toilet needs, may not be able to drink or even eat. More then 50% mentally challenged, lack speech and language, about 30% have physical disability also. Thus every child has different problem and thus his need also differs.

The pattern through which normal children get school education is termed as common pattern of curriculum, while in case of mentally challenged it is individualistic pattern of curriculum. Every mentally challenged student has separate curriculum. Since needs of every mentally disabled child differs, his syllabus has to be different and it is thus need based. To elaborate, a Border line student will be taught academics which will include things like learning ABCD and number count etc. But in case of severely retarded student priority will be toilet training and speech.

The syllabus for each student is worked out by a team which normally includes Special Educator, Clinical psychologist and mother of the child. Mother plays an important role since she is a best person to ascertain the true needs of her ward. She is the person who follows the class room techniques at home also and thus can maintain continuity.

What is special education? How does it differ from our normal education? Who are the personals imparting this?
Special education is a technique used in teaching mentally challenged and autistic children. Every goal or task which is to be taught is broken in to simpler and easy steps. This is called as task analysis. Once this is done, child is given opportunity to learn the first simple step, once this is achieved then goes to next step. In many of the cases, in the absence of speech and language it becomes very difficult for the sp. educator to have two way communications. Drinking water can be taken as an example. This is divided in to about 10 or 12 steps. First holding the empty glass, then holding it vertical, then with small quantity of water in it, then filling the glass half, then trying to take the glass up to lips and so on. The last step could be actually swallowing water. Each step is monitored and recorded. It is impossible to say how much time a particular child will take for reaching next step.

In autistic with mental disability, the job becomes more difficult for the faculties working with him/her. Apart from special educator, you need psychological intervention too. The environment around an autistic child has to be specially structured and can not be altered frequently.

In SSS special school, the chronological progression is care group- pre– primary – primary – secondary – pre vocational – vocational and finally rehabilitation. Special schooling is up to secondary level.
Again it is impossible to predict how much time a child will need for going to the next class.