What Is Special Education?

Many kids with special needs qualify for extra help in school. A child who has a problem that makes it harder to learn might be able to get:

• speech therapy to help with talking and understanding others
• occupational therapy to help with doing everyday tasks
• the help of a classroom aide
• a custom learning plan, also called an individualized education program (IEP)
• things that help with learning (such as extra time for homework or tests)

When a child has these services, it’s called “special education.” To qualify for special education, kids need to be tested.

If you’re concerned about your child’s ability to learn, don’t delay testing. The sooner kids get the help needed, the more likely they’ll succeed in school.

What disabilities are covered by special education?

IDEA covers 13 types of disabilities. These categories include autism, hearing impairment and intellectual disability (which used to be referred to as “mental retardation”). Another category, called “ specific learning disability,” applies to many kids who have learning and thinking differences.

A specific learning disability most often affects skills in reading, writing, listening, speaking, reasoning and doing math. Common learning differences in this category include:

• Dyslexia: Difficulty with reading, writing, spelling, speaking
• Dyscalculia: Difficulty doing math problems, understanding time and money, remembering math facts
• Dysgraphia: Difficulty with handwriting, spelling, organizing ideas
• Dyspraxia: Difficulty with hand-eye coordination, balance, fine motor skills
• Auditory processing disorder: Difficulty interpreting what the ear hears (which is different from having a hearing impairment)
• Visual processing issues: Difficulty interpreting what the eye sees (which is different from having a visual impairment)

What strategies help special education students in the general education classroom?

Federal law says that students with learning disabilities should be educated alongside their non-disabled peers “to the maximum extent possible.” According to a 2014 report by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 66 percent of students with learning disabilities spend 80 percent or more of their school day in general education classrooms. That’s a big increase from 47 percent a decade ago.

Schools use many strategies to help students receiving special education services succeed in general education settings. These strategies include:

• Assistive technology such as providing a laptop to help a student with a writing disability take notes in class
• Accommodations such as seating the student near the teacher (and far from distractions) or allowing him to give oral reports instead of writing essays
• Modifications such as reducing the amount of homework a student is assigned
• Paraprofessionals who serve as teachers’ aides helping students with various tasks such as taking notes and highlighting important information.

Special education needs basically refers to a range of educational and social services catered by the public school system and other educational institutions to those children who are born with disabilities and who are between 3 to 21 years of age. A lot of websites on the Internet will provide you with the description of the different types of special education needs in classrooms and services that are available in schools today and how your special need child can be benefited from them. Special education program is designed to make sure that the students with disabilities are getting an environment which allows them to be educated effectively. Disabilities which qualify for special education needs are given as follows:- physical disabilities such as deafness or blindness; mental disabilities such as Down’s syndrome and autism; medical conditions such as oxygen dependence of traumatic brain injury, learning deficits such as dyslexia and behavioral disorder such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder.

There are SEN teachers for special children who teach students who have physical, cognitive, language, learning, sensory, emotional abilities that are different from the normal population. Special educators facilitate such instruction or teaching methods which are specially designed to meet the individualized needs of the children. These teachers are trained to make the process of education easily available and accessible to those children who are devoid of basic education due to their physical disabilities they are struggling with. The basic motive of special education is to provide access to free education to special need children in the public school system. Special education need system assumes that every special need child is capable of being successful. Each child will succeed according to his or her abilities. The special education focuses on enhancing the child’s strengths and show support towards their weaknesses. Teachers let each student feel and know that they believe in him or her. The rewards of such education cannot be described in words for both the child and the teacher.

Types of Special Education Needs for Children in School

Cognition and Learning Needs

Children and young people for whom learning, thinking and understanding is much harder than most of the other students. Some of the things which are found to be difficult for such children are:-

1. Taking longer time to learn necessary or important skills.
2. Finding it difficult to recall or memorize things such as the crucial words for reading and time tables.
3. Finding it difficult to understand how to use letter sounds to read and spell words.
4. Requiring more time than normal to think and tell the answers for any question.

Communication and Interaction Needs

Such requirements are for those children who find it difficult to interact and communicate with people around them or with the world. These needs are also called speech, language & communication needs (SLCN). Some of those things which children or young people with such difficulty might find difficult are:-

1. Communicating with other students or adults, especially when in a group.
2. Talking about something which they haven’t already chosen to talk about.
3. Making new friends or keeping the old ones for a long time.
4. Dealing with changes in the way of doing things that they use to do.
5. Dealing with noises, smells or other sensations which occur around them or happen with them.

Conclusion: –

These children with special education needs can also cope with the curriculum requirements but they need extra help and support. They might have hearing impairments, autism at mild ranges within the spectrum, hyperactivity etc but they can be dealt with love and support.