Special education

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This article is about educating students with disabilities or behavioral problems. For information about educating gifted students, see Gifted education.

Special education is instruction that is modified or particularized for those students with special needs, such as learning differences, mental health problems, specific disabilities (physical or developmental) [1] , and giftedness [2].

Contents

[edit] Provision

The provision of education to people with disabilities or learning differences differs from country to country, and state to state. The ability of a child to access a particular setting may be dependent on their specific needs, location, family choice, or government policy. Special educators describe a cascade of services, in which students with special needs receive services in varying degrees based on the degree to which they interact with the general school population. In the main, special education will be provided in one, or a combination, of the following ways.

  • Regular education classes combined with special education services is a flexible model often referred to as inclusion. In this model, children with special needs are educated with their typically developing peers for at least half of the day. In a "full inclusion" model, specialized services are provided in the regular classroom by sending the service provider in to work with one or more children in their regular classroom setting. In a partial inclusion model, the child may attend regular or general education classes and then receive specialized services, such as in a resource room, speech or language therapy center.
  • Pull-out or "resource" classrooms, where the student with the special need leaves the regular classroom to attend smaller, more intensive instructional sessions. Special education services may be provided in other settings at specific times during the day on a pull-out basis, such as resource rooms, occupational, physical and speech therapy, sensory rooms, rooms with special physical equipment, adaptive physical education, etc.
  • Self-contained classes, located in mainstream schools but separate from regular education classrooms, are designed specifically for children who have severe special needs and may be termed support classes, SEN bases or units (in the UK), or a variety of jurisdiction-specific terms.
  • Special schools are specifically designed, resourced and staffed to meet the varied needs of children who need additional support (i.e. physical, cognitive, medical, and psychological).
  • Outreach or related services such as Speech and Language Therapy, Autism Outreach, Occupational Therapy, etc. may be provided to pupils on a visiting basis in their own setting; mainstream school, special school, independent school, home-teaching, etc.
  • Residential centres are live-in schools where complex needs can be met with appropriate medical care and provision of a variety of therapies.

Modifications can consist of changes in curriculum, supplementary aides or equipment, and the provision of specialized facilities that allow students to participate in the educational environment to the fullest extent possible. [3] Students may need this help to access subject matter, to physically gain access to the school, or to meet their emotional needs.

Support is targeted to the needs of the individual student and can be short or long term. In the United States, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires that special needs students be included in regular education activities as much as possible. In Scotland the Additional Support Needs Act places an obligation on education authorities to meet the needs of all children in consultation with other agencies and parents.

[edit] Abbreviations

In North America special education is commonly abbreviated as Special Ed, SpecEd, SPED, SpEd, in a professional context.[1][2] The term sped is often interpreted as an insult.

In England and Wales the initialism SEN is most commonly used when discussing special education needs. The term is used to denote the condition of having special educational needs, the services which provide the support and the programmes and staff which implement the education. [3]. In Scotland the term Special Educational Needs (SEN), and its variants are not official terminology although the very recent implementation of the Additional Support for Learning Act means that both SEN and ASN (Additional Support Needs) are used interchangeably in current common practice.[4]

[edit] Criticism

This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (July 2007)
  • Special Education as been a field in which large, empirical studies have been difficult to implement, given the differences in service delivery models. In a meta-analysis of special education, researchers found no significant effect size when examining the relationship between student outcomes and inclusion in special education (see Kavale, K. A., Glass, G. V (1982) The Efficacy of Special Education Interventions and Practices: A Compendium of Meta-Analysis Findings. Focus on Exceptional Children, v15 n4 p1-14).
  • Special education as implemented in public schools has been criticized because the qualification criteria for services are extremely variable from one education agency to another. In the United States, all Local and State Education Agencies must use classification and labeling models that are aligned with the federal definitions, outlined the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
  • At-risk students (those with educational needs that aren't associated with a disability) are often placed in classes with students with disabilities. Critics assert that placing at-risk students in the same classes as disabled students may impede the educational progress of people with disabilities.
  • Special education programs continue to be criticized by disability activists because they are still often segregated from regular education programs.
  • The currently popular practice of inclusion has been criticized by advocates and some parents of children with disabilities because some of these students require instructional methods that differ dramatically from typical classroom methods. Critics assert that it is not possible to deliver effectively two or more very different instructional methods in the same classroom. As a result, the educational progress of students who depend on different instructional methods to learn often fall even further behind their peers without disabilities.
  • Parents of typically developing children often fear that the special needs of a single "fully included" student will take critical levels of attention and energy away from the rest of the class and thereby impair the academic achievements of all students.
  • Some parents, advocates, and students have concerns about the eligibility criteria and its application. In some cases, parents and students protest the students' placement into special education programs. For example, a student may be placed into the special education programs due to a mental health condition such as depression, anxiety, panic attacks or ADHD, while the student and his parents believe that the condition is adequately managed through medication and outside therapy. In other cases, students whose parents believe they require the additional support of special education services are denied participation in the program based on the eligibility criteria.
  • An alternative to homogenization and lockstep standardization is proposed, using the Sudbury model schools, an alternative approach in which children learn at their own pace rather than following a chronologically-based curriculum. Proponents of unschooling have also claimed that children raised in this method do not suffer from learning disabilities.
Gerald Coles, in his book, The Learning Mystique: A Critical Look at "Learning Disabilities", asserts that there are partisan agendas behind the educational policy-makers and that the scientific research that they use to support their arguments regarding the teaching of literacy are flawed. These include the idea that there are neurological explanations for learning disabilities.

[edit] Academic resources

  • Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, ISSN: 1468-3148 (electronic) ISSN: 1360-2322 (paper), Blackwell Publishing
  • British Journal of Learning Disabilities, ISSN: 1468-3156 (electronic) , ISSN: 1354-4187 (paper)
  • British Journal of Special Education, ISSN: 1467-8578 (electronic) ISSN: 0952-3383 (paper), Blackwell Publishing
  • Clinical Child Psychology and Psychiatry, ISSN: 1461-7021 (electronic) ISSN: 1359-1045 (paper), SAGE Publications
  • Developmental Neurorehabilitation, ISSN: 1751-8431 (electronic) 1751-8423 (paper), Informa Healthcare
  • Disability & Society, ISSN: 1360-0508 (electronic) 0968-7599 (paper), Routledge
  • Journal of Intellectual Disability Research, ISSN: 1365-2788 (electronic) ISSN: 0964-2633 (paper), Blackwell Publishing
  • Journal of Policy and Practice in Intellectual Disabilities, ISSN: 1741-1130 (electronic) ISSN: 1741-1122 (paper), Blackwell Publishing

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] Citations and notes

  1. ^ http://www.minedu.govt.nz/index.cfm?layout=document&documentid=7301&data=l
  2. ^ http://www.schoolofchoice.com/academy/specialed.html
  3. ^ http://www.weac.org/resource/june96/speced.htm

[edit] General information

  • Wilmshurst, L, & Brue, A. W. (2005). A parent's guide to special education. New York: AMACOM.

[edit] External links

ca:Educació especial cs:Speciální pedagogika de:Sonderpädagogik es:Educación especial fr:Certificat d'aptitude professionnelle pour les aides spécialisées, les enseignements adaptés et la scolarisation des élèves en situation de handicap he:חינוך מיוחד ms:Pendidikan khas nl:Speciaal onderwijs ja:特別支援教育 no:Spesialpedagogikk pl:Pedagogika specjalna pt:Educação especial sk:Špeciálna pedagogika sr:Специјално образовање zh:特殊教育

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