ISSN (Online): 2455-3662 EPRA International Journal of Multidisciplinary Research (IJMR) - Peer Reviewed Journal Volume: 6 | Issue: 6 | June 2020 || Journal DOI: 10.36713/epra2013 || SJIF Impact Factor: 7.032 ||ISI Value: 1.188 2020 EPRA IJMR | www.eprajournals.com | Journal DOI URL: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra2013 406 TEACHING LANGUAGE TO THE SPECIAL CHILDREN: CHALLENGES AND POSSIBILITIES Quazi Farzana Yesmin Lecturer in English, City University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Sifat Ullah Teacher, HEED International School, Dhaka, Bangladesh Mohammad Ehsanul Islam Khan Lecturer, Department of English, Manarat International University, Dhaka, Bangladesh Article DOI: https://doi.org/10.36713/epra4479 ABSTRACT Since communicating people is one of the first and foremost obstacles to autistic children, it is a basic need for them to get vigilant and appropriate nurture for language acquisition. Moreover, to develop the language skills of special children appropriately, it is essential to ensure effective language teaching. The primary objective of this study was to identify the challenges that the teachers face in the class and to bring out the possibilities of teaching the mother tongue to the special children as a part of special education. As language learning is the leading step of special education, the study aims to contribute to the field by pointing out the challenges and the possibilities. The study was conducted by collecting data from three different schools of special children by following a qualitative method. The findings revealed that inadequate understanding, proper classroom facilities, lack of awareness and insufficient language training created a great challenge for the teachers in teaching the language to the special children. The study also exposed that special training, a well-decorated classroom, regular speech therapy, and change of outlook minimized the challenges and made language teaching more effective. KEYWORDS: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), Special Education Needs (SEN), Communication, Language Proficiency 1. INTRODUCTION Autism is not a disease; it is a lifelong developmental disability. Autism is such a disability that makes a child specialist with a unique and different specialty. Autism and „autism spectrum disorder‟ both are general terms for the people who have disorders of brain development. Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (hereafter, ASD) need proper mind development through special education to learn. This paper was conducted on children with special educational needs (SEN) who are suffering from ASD and have significant language challenges from an early age. Moreover, as the oral expression has become the first and foremost way of communication, it is very essential to bring up special children in a special communicative manner of learning. To ensure the rights of education to the disabled children equally, there is no other alternative way to make them skilled first in language learning, because, a major characteristic of the autistic population is the abnormal development of speech and language (Ritvo & Freeman, 1978; Rutter, 1978). Hence, their mental growth and the skill of communicating people are seemed to be delayed for a lack of proper verbalization. Since communicating people is the predominant obstacle to autistic children, it is a basic need for them to get careful and proper nurture for language acquisition. Moreover, to develop the language skills of special children appropriately, it is essential to ensure effective language teaching to them. The goal of this study is to identify the