Jobs / Education and social services / 25-2051.00
Special Education Teachers, Preschool
Teach academic, social, and life skills to preschool-aged students with learning, emotional, or physical disabilities. Includes teachers who specialize and work with students who are blind or have visual impairments; students who are deaf or have hearing impairments; and students with intellectual disabilities.
- US jobs
- 29,510
- Median wage
- $64,830 a year
- Job family
- Education and social services
Can agents do the work of special education teachers, preschool?
We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Education and social services:
- Task levelUnexploredNo task-level benchmark in our collection tests teaching, counseling, or casework.
- Project levelPartialThin, adjacent evidence only. GDPval, which spans 44 occupations, is the one benchmark in our collection mapped here. OpenAI reports that GPT-5.5's deliverables won or tied against professionals' work in 84.9% of comparisons across all GDPval occupations. No benchmark tests work with students or clients.
Benchmarks for the job family
These cover work in education and social services, not always this occupation's tasks.
Typical tasks
From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.
- Develop or implement strategies to meet the needs of students with a variety of disabilities.
- Communicate nonverbally with children to provide them with comfort, encouragement, or positive reinforcement.
- Maintain accurate and complete student records as required by laws, district policies, or administrative regulations.
- Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification or positive reinforcement.
- Attend to children's basic needs by feeding them, dressing them, or changing their diapers.
- Teach basic skills, such as color, shape, number and letter recognition, personal hygiene, or social skills, to preschool students with special needs.
- Develop individual educational plans (IEPs) designed to promote students' educational, physical, or social development.
- Prepare classrooms with a variety of materials or resources for children to explore, manipulate, or use in learning activities or imaginative play.
- Meet with parents or guardians to discuss their children's progress, advise them on using community resources, or teach skills for dealing with students' impairments.
- Modify the general preschool curriculum for students with disabilities.
- Observe and evaluate students' performance, behavior, social development, and physical health.
- Read books to entire classes or to small groups.
Other job titles for this occupation (41)
Early Childhood Special Education Teacher (ECSE Teacher) · Early Intervention Teacher · Exceptional Student Education Teacher (ESE Teacher) · Preschool SPED Teacher (Preschool Special Education Teacher) · Profound Mental Handicaps SPED Teacher (Profound Mental Handicaps Special Education Teacher) · Severe Mental Handicaps SPED Teacher (Severe Mental Handicaps Special Education Teacher) · Special Education Resource Teacher · Special Education Teacher · Special Needs Teacher · SPED Preschool Teacher (Special Education Preschool Teacher) · Autistic Teacher · Behavior Interventionist · Behavior Specialist · Behavioral Interventionist · Blind Teacher · Braille Teacher · Deaf Education Teacher · Deaf Teacher · Early Childhood Special Educator (EC Special Educator) · Early Intervention Specialist · ED Teacher (Emotional Disabilities Teacher) · Educational Intervention Teacher · Emotionally Impaired Teacher · Exceptional Needs Teacher · Hearing Impaired Itinerant Teacher (HI Itinerant Teacher) · Hearing Impaired Teacher · Learning Disabled Teacher · Learning Support Teacher · Lip Reading Teacher · Mentally Impaired Teacher · Mentally Retarded Teacher · Physically Impaired Teacher · Pre-K SPED Teacher (Pre-Kindergarten Special Education Teacher) · Preschool Intervention Specialist · Reading Interventionist · Resource Room Teacher · Self Contained Special Education Teacher · Special Education Paraprofessional · Special Needs Assistant · Speech and Hearing Handicapped Teacher · Visually Impaired Teacher