In the UAE, shadow teacher, learning support assistant, LSA, one-to-one aide and classroom support assistant are used more or less interchangeably for an adult supporting one child in a mainstream classroom.
There is a mild convention that "shadow teacher" implies one child and "learning support assistant" may imply supporting several, but it is not consistent between schools and it is not worth relying on. Ask what the person will actually do.
The three things that genuinely differ
1. Supervision
Is there a qualified person who observes them working with your child, reviews the data and changes the plan? How often, and what do they look at?
This is the largest real difference between two arrangements that cost similar amounts. An unsupervised assistant with written targets is a risk. An unsupervised assistant with no targets is a placement, not a service.
2. Written targets
What is this adult trying to achieve, specifically, this term? "Support Yusuf in class" is a job description. "Yusuf starts written tasks within two minutes of instruction without adult prompting" is a target — checkable, and capable of being met.
3. A fading plan
When does the adult move further away, on what trigger, in what steps? If nobody has written this, the default is that it never happens — and the assistant becomes permanent scaffolding that everyone has stopped noticing.
The failure mode to know about
A permanently attached adult can reduce the very thing they were hired to increase. It is well documented and it happens quietly:
- Classmates stop approaching a child who always has an adult beside them
- The teacher addresses the assistant rather than the child
- The child waits for the adult signal before acting, having learned that one always comes
- Nobody notices, because the child appears to be coping
The child looks supported. What has actually happened is that independence has been quietly traded for calm, and everyone involved is reporting that things are going well.
Qualifications, and how much they matter
Relevant experience with your child's profile usually beats a higher unrelated qualification. What matters more than either is whether the person is being told what to do by someone who knows, and whether anyone checks.
One thing worth being firm about: a shadow is not qualified to teach your child's curriculum and should not be the person delivering it. If your child's actual teaching has quietly become the assistant's job, that is a different and more serious problem than any label.
What to ask, whatever it is called
- Who supervises them, how often, and what do they look at?
- What are this term's written targets?
- What is the plan to reduce their proximity, and when does it start?
- How does their work connect to the school's IEP?
- Who teaches my child — the teacher, or this person?
- What happens when they leave?
Six questions. They work on any provider, under any of the labels, and the answers will differ far more than the job titles do.