Jobs / Education and social services / 25-2056.00
Special Education Teachers, Elementary School
Teach academic, social, and life skills to elementary school 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
- Not reported by BLS
- Job family
- Education and social services
Can agents do the work of special education teachers, elementary school?
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.
- Instruct students with disabilities in academic subjects, using a variety of techniques, such as phonetics, multisensory learning, or repetition to reinforce learning and meet students' varying needs.
- Develop or implement strategies to meet the needs of students with a variety of disabilities.
- Teach socially acceptable behavior, employing techniques such as behavior modification or positive reinforcement.
- Modify the general elementary education curriculum for students with disabilities.
- Maintain accurate and complete student records as required by laws, district policies, or administrative regulations.
- Prepare classrooms with a variety of materials or resources for children to explore, manipulate, or use in learning activities or imaginative play.
- Establish and enforce rules for behavior and procedures for maintaining order among students.
- Provide assistive devices, supportive technology, or assistance accessing facilities, such as restrooms.
- Coordinate placement of students with special needs into mainstream classes.
- Observe and evaluate students' performance, behavior, social development, and physical health.
- Encourage students to explore learning opportunities or persevere with challenging tasks to prepare them for later grades.
- Confer with parents, administrators, testing specialists, social workers, or other professionals to develop individual educational plans (IEPs) for students' educational, physical, or social development.
Other job titles for this occupation (62)
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Teacher (DHH Teacher) · Emotional Disabilities Teacher · Hearing Impaired Itinerant Teacher (HI Itinerant Teacher) · Learning Support Teacher · Resource Program Teacher · Severe Emotional Disorders Elementary Teacher (SED Elementary Teacher) · Special Educator · SPED Inclusion Teacher (Special Education Inclusion Teacher) · SPED Resource Teacher (Special Education Resource Teacher) · SPED Teacher (Special Education Teacher) · Academic Interventionist · APE Teacher (Adapted Physical Education Teacher) · Behavior Interventionist · Behavior Specialist · Blind Teacher · Braille Teacher · Cross-Categorical SPED Teacher (Cross-Categorical Special Education Teacher) · Developmentally Delayed Special Education Teacher (DD Special Education Teacher) · Early Childhood Special Educator · Early Interventionist · Elementary Classroom Instructor · Elementary Classroom Teacher · Elementary School SPED Teacher (Elementary School Special Education Teacher) · Elementary SPED Teacher (Elementary Special Education Teacher) · Elementary Teacher · Emotional Support Teacher · Exceptional Needs Teacher · Hearing Impaired Teacher · Home Therapy Teacher · Inclusion Special Education Teacher · Inclusion Teacher · Integrated Program Teacher · Interventionist · LBD Teacher (Learning and Behavioral Disabilities Teacher) · Learning Disabilities Teacher · Learning Disabled Teacher · Learning Specialist · Lip Reading Teacher · Long Term Sub SPED Teacher (Long Term Substitute Special Education Teacher) · Long Term Substitute Elementary Teacher (Long Term Sub Elementary Teacher) · Math Interventionist (Mathematics Interventionist) · Mildly Disabled Student Special Education Teacher (Mildly Disabled Student SPED Teacher) · Multi-Handicapped Students Special Education Teacher (Multi-Handicapped Student SPED Teacher) · Physically Impaired Teacher · Primary Special Educator · Primary SPED Teacher (Primary Special Education Teacher) · Profound Mental Handicaps SPED Teacher (Profound Mental Handicaps Special Education Teacher) · Public School Teacher · Reading Specialist · Resource Room SPED Teacher (Resource Room Special Education Teacher) · Resource Specialist · Self-Contained Special Education Teacher (Self-Contained SPED Teacher) · Severe EBD Teacher (Severe Emotional Behavioral Disorders Teacher) · Severe Mental Handicaps SPED Teacher (Severe Mental Handicaps Special Education Teacher) · Sign Language Teacher · Special Needs Teacher · SPED Associate (Special Education Associate) · SPED Clerk (Special Education Clerk) · SPED Instructor (Special Education Instructor) · SPED Life Skills Teacher (Special Education Life Skills Teacher) · SPED Specialist (Special Education Specialist) · Teacher