Understanding Special Education

Meaning of Special Education and Categories of Children with Special Needs

• Exceptional children and youth, like all others, have unique traits but share the same psychological needs like belonging, acceptance, appreciation, and love.
• Special Education is defined as individually planned, systematically implemented, and carefully evaluated instruction designed to help exceptional children achieve self-sufficiency and success.

Individually Planned Instruction

• The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in the United States mandates an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for special education students aged 3–21.
• IEPs should include statements of the child's present performance level, annual goals, short-term instructional objectives, specific educational services, and needed transition services.

Systematically Implemented Instruction

• Different types of special education needs require specifically tailored educational services, curriculum goals, competencies, skills, approaches, strategies, and evaluation procedures.

Personal Self-Sufficiency

• An important goal of special education is to foster independence from adult assistance in personal maintenance, home making, community life, vocational activities, and leisure pursuits.

Present and Future Environments

• The present environment includes the child's family, school, community, and supporting institutions.
• The future environment is a forecast of how the child can progress through education levels and transition to employment, enabling them to lead a normal life despite their disability.

Exceptional Children

• Children and youth with one or more conditions are considered exceptional, including those with mental retardation, giftedness, learning disabilities, emotional/behavioral disorders, communication disorders, deafness, blindness, physical disabilities, health impairments, or severe disabilities.
• Exceptional children are also referred to as children with special needs (CSN) and their mental ability may be average, below, or above average.

Four Points of View About Special Education

• Special education is governed by legal mandates.
• The 1987 Philippine Constitution ensures the right to quality education for all citizens and requires appropriate support.
• The state must provide training and civics to adult citizens, the disabled, and out-of-school youth
• RA 7277, the Magna Carta for Disabled Persons, promotes rehabilitation, self-development, self-reliance, and mainstream integration.
• Special Education is part of the country's education system and the Department of Education's basic education program; having begun in 1907.

Special Education Implementation

• Special Education involves teaching children with special needs in the least restrictive environment, focusing on the who, what, how, and where of implementation.
• Key individuals include exceptional children, school administrators, special and regular teachers, guidance counselors, school psychologists, speech therapists, physical and occupational therapists, medical doctors, and specialists.

Essential Aspects of Special Education

• Every exceptional child requires access to differentiated curricular programs for skills and competencies in basic education.
• The IEP details annual goals, quarterly objectives, teaching strategies, learning evaluation, and needed services.
• Children with mental retardation learn adaptive skills and basic academic content.
• Gifted children receive enrichment activities and advanced content knowledge.
• Children who are blind learn braille, orientation, and mobility.
• Children who are deaf learn sign language and speech reading.

Educational Placements

• Inclusive education is favored, with mainstreaming in regular classes.
• Other options: special schools, residential schools, self-contained classes, home-bound instruction, and hospital instruction.

Special Education as Intervention

• Special education serves as purposeful intervention, preventing or overcoming obstacles to learning and participation.
• Prevention intervention keeps minor problems from escalating into disabilities with primary prevention eliminating risk factors.

Intervention Types

• Secondary intervention aims to reduce the effects of existing disabilities, and tertiary intervention minimizes the impact on those with disabilities.
• Remedial intervention seeks to eliminate the effects of a disability.

Basic Terms

• Developmental Disability refers to severe, chronic conditions before age 22 that cause substantial functional limitations.
• Impairment refers to reduced function or loss of a body part.
• Handicap is a disability or impairment encounter when interacting with the environment.
• At Risk refers to children with a higher chance of developing a disability.

Categories of Children at Risk

• Established Risks: conditions like cerebral palsy or Down syndrome.
• Biological Risks: premature birth, low birth weight, or maternal conditions.
• Environmental Risks: poverty, abuse, lack of shelter or medical care, and parental substance abuse.

Categories of Exceptionalities

• Mental Retardation: significant limitations in functioning, manifesting before age 18.
• Giftedness and Talent: high performance in intellectual, creative, or artistic areas.
• Specific Learning Disability: disorders in understanding or using language.
• Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: conditions affecting educational performance over time.
• Speech and Language Disorders: communication patterns affecting a person's life.
• Hearing Impairment: hearing disabilities from mild to profound, including deafness and being hard of hearing.
• Visual Impairment: a range of visual disabilities from total blindness to low vision.
• Physical Impairment: orthopedic or neurological impairments affecting movement.
• Severe Disabilities: disabilities in intellectual, physical, and social functioning.

Use of Disability Labels

• Differing viewpoints exist regarding the use of labels to describe children with disabilities.
• Some disapprove of labeling, while others see it as necessary for providing systematic special education services.

Pros and Possible Benefits of Labeling

• Categories can relate diagnosis to specific types of education and treatment.
• Labeling may lead to protective responses and help professionals communicate, classify research.
• Funding is often based on specific categories and labels promote advocacy and legislative actions.
• Labeling helps make the exceptional child's special needs more visible to the public.

Possible Disadvantages of Labeling

• Labels may focus on deficits, lower expectations, and lead to self-fulfilling prophecies.
• Labels may incorrectly explain performance deficits and reduce accountability for instructional variables.
• Impact of being labeled may result in poor self-concept, peer rejection, permanence and exclusion from regular classrooms.
• Disproportionate labeling occurs among diverse cultural, ethnic, and linguistic groups.
• Classification can require significant resources that could be used for planning and instruction.

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

• The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has transformed American education, affecting schools and roles.

Principles of Special Education Programs

• Zero reject: schools must enroll every child, regardless of disability.
• Nondiscriminatory testing: unbiased, multi-factor evaluation methods are essential.
• Appropriate education: individualized education programs must be developed and implemented.
• Least restrictive environment: students with disabilities should be educated with non-disabled peers.
• Due process: schools must protect the rights of children with disabilities and their parents.
• Parent participation: collaborative partnerships with parents are necessary for designing and implementing special education.