Final answer:
Helpful teacher behaviors when working with parents of children with special needs include focusing on the present and future, and being hopefully realistic. Applying inclusion strategies in education, such as those advocated by The Nora Project, is key. Legal frameworks like No Child Left Behind aim for equal educational standards but show mixed outcomes.
Step-by-step explanation:
When working with parents of children with special needs, helpful teacher behaviors include a focus on the present and the future. Teachers play a crucial role in fostering a supportive environment for the child by being hopefully realistic about the child's abilities and outcomes. While helping parents understand the child's disability is important, it is advised to guide them towards acceptance and how to support their child's education, rather than expending too much effort on researching the causes of the disability, which can often be inconclusive or unhelpful in day-to-day educational strategies.
Institutions like The Nora Project exemplify how to promote disability inclusion by empowering educators with the skills needed for teaching empathy and inclusion, reflecting the diversity of disabilities. This approach directly impacts the schooling experience for children with various disabilities including auto-immune disorders, mental health disorders, and those who are on the spectrum by making education more inclusive.
Moreover, legislation like No Child Left Behind emphasizes that students with disabilities should work towards the same standards as their peers, albeit with necessary accommodations. The success of such initiatives is mixed, with improvements in test performance contrasted by challenges such as increased dropout rates and some schools being less welcoming to maintain test score averages.