Une brosse à dents à la fois
Special Needs Kids Learn from Nursing Students
At the Tuqu’ Center for Special Education, six third-year nursing students traded lectures for mirrors, demonstration toothbrushes, and patience. Their goal: teaching hygiene basics to children with special needs, one step at a time.
Aya Mohsen, Iman Al-Khatib, Kawthar Suleiman, Lana Abu Amriah, Razan Shaer, and Taleen Abu Rmeis, all from Bethlehem University’s Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences, built a hygiene program from scratch: handwashing, tooth brushing, nail care, hair and clothing care. Then they rebuilt it again for kids who needed each step translated into pictures, gestures, and hands-on practice.
Guided by their pediatric course coordinators, the students swapped worksheets for demonstration tools and illustrated cards. Children washed hands alongside them, practiced brushing motions on models, and worked through each habit as many times as it took to stick.
At the end of the session, every child went home with a toothbrush and a drawing they’d made to capture what they’d learned.
The toothbrushes went home in backpacks. The real-world practice goes home with the six students who taught it: how to meet a patient exactly where they are, long before any of them puts on a nurse’s badge.
