Special Education

Special Education: Structures & Elements

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General education was designed to be accessible to everyone; well, almost. While subjects beg to be differed in priority and favourites, students too differ in needs. While the typical general education student is fully equipped with all the learning faculties necessary, some have a few lacking in their learning armours. Where do these learners go? Yep, you got it; to the rescue of special education.

This type of education has at least two utilized structures. The first structure is the inclusive education institution. As the structure name suggests, students in these institution are only limited to learners having special needs. The approach of such structure is entirely focused to these types of learners.

The second structure is the support structure of which learners with special needs are enrolled in a general education-institution. The support structure becomes an integrated part in the general education’s system. This approach encourages special learners to associate with other learners and vice versa.

Aside from structure, special education has two main elements:

Special needs are needs that distinguish special learners from other learners. These needs are met in the aforementioned structures and may come in the form of learning-challenges, physically disabled, and behavioural, emotional, or developmental disorders.
Additional supports are the answer to the learners’ special needs. It usually consists of student monitoring, learning intervention, and correcting erroneous belief. In specific, supports and teaching approach depend on a learner’s special needs and is deemed challenging in a general education environment.

Special education obviously offers a safer haven for learners having special needs. However, this institution cannot forever cater to their needs as reality is uncertain and life, in general, is unfathomable. Thus, apart from providing the best of education, these supporting institutions also works on preparing the students to sustainably yearn learning and living.

Giving education to children with special needs

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All around the world, there are children and young individuals who cannot seem to interact well with other people. These children with special needs usually have learning and communication challenges. They may also have physical disabilities and developmental disorders. Because of these challenges, many of these children and youths with special needs are not able to experience formal education. Their mental, emotional and physical handicaps are interfering with their abilities to learning on the same pace as average individuals. However, these children still have the right and the need to access quality education. Because of that need, special education was developed.

Special education is a distinct type of learning process through which students with special needs receive skills and knowledge considering their needs and differences. This type of education does not adhere to a single approach of teaching, but rather uses different approaches that would greatly address the educational needs of special children. This learning process usually entails individual-based teaching procedures, tools and materials as well as educational equipment. This type of school provides a learning set-up that has been proven to be more effective in teaching special students than in typical classroom set-up.

Identifying children with special needs could be tricky at first, since parents are usually the first to deny the fact that their children require special attention. Most children are detected as candidates for special needs based from their medical history. Some children are detected to need special education after a brief academic period in which they were observed as having learning difficulties.

Despite the fact that students with special needs are receiving a type of education that suits them, it is still the society’s main duty to accept them and learn how to work with them. Their special circumstance is not a reason to discriminate them.

The Difference between General and Special Education

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There are students who need more special attention than the typical ones. Some people call them as less-intelligent or even abnormal students. That may be how some people rudely call them, but it is better to describe them as special students. These special students might not be like the normal ones – mainly because they have special needs. They might be having difficulties or challenges with learning or they might be having a hard time with communication. Some special students might have behavioral or emotional disorders while others might have physical disabilities that prevent them from learning the same way and pace like typical understudies. Because of these special needs, it is necessary to create a certain category of education that would cater to these types of individuals – special education. So, how does special education from differ from the more common and widely used general education?

Special education uses quite a different approach from the general education, although some areas overlap. General education involves presenting the standard curriculum set by education authorities using standard teaching methods. General education involves the typical classroom setting, wherein teachers address the needs of the class as whole. Teachers in general education implements procedures and teaching methods regardless of the differences between the students.

Special education, meanwhile, is the opposite of general education. Special education uses a certain special curriculum which caters to a certain special student type. For example, the procedures and teaching methods used to attend to one special student are different from methodology implemented on another student. The focus of special education is to address the students’ individual needs and differences. To do that, it may require various teaching methods, learning materials and support equipment. Thus, instead of using the typical classroom set up, special education teachers use the resource room set up.

Identifying children needing special education

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Providing education to children with special needs is a challenging matter. Special children usually have learning, communication or physical challenges, as well developmental and behavioural disorders. Their condition may be congenital or due to events after birth. In a typical classroom setting, there may not be enough methods, procedures and materials to cater to the educational needs of a special child.

To further the educational necessity of special children, governments have outlined their own special education program. Enrolled special children are identified based from their medical history. Doctors have devised medical methods to determine a child's capacity early in their lives. Doctor may be able to detect special cases through genetics and observation.

However, there are children whose special needs are detected only when they subjected to academic exposure. Psychologists have also devised methods to detect whether a child needs special attention. Two of the methods used to identify a special child are the discrepancy and response to intervention models. Under the discrepancy model, a child may require special education if his

academic performance is below his expected intelligence. Under the response to intervention model, meanwhile, a child detected with a learning difficulty on the first two years of his academic life is not treated as special right away. He undergoes an intervention program designed to get rid of the learning difficulty. If a child fails to response accordingly to the program, he then has special educational needs.

Children with special needs are sent to educational institutions called special schools. They are designed to provide special education to special children using various teaching approaches and related technologies. Its teachers are specifically trained to handle special children, either individually or by small groups. For the rest of their academic years, special students will be given academic attention depending on the progress they will exhibit.

Importance of Special Education Programmes in Schools

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         Special needs education or special education is the education of students with special needs or with medical, mental or psychological disabilities in a manner that addresses the individual differences and needs of those students. If you are planning to pursue a teaching career and become a special needs education teacher, it is important that you should know the importance or significance of special needs education programmes in schools especially for the kindergarten, primary school and secondary school levels.

         When you know the significance and relevance of having a special education programme in a school, then, you would have an idea about the important role you would play for children with special needs if you continue your plans in pursuing a career as a special needs education teacher. The most important reason for the significance of special education is early intervention for preschool-age children. The special needs education programmes of various school districts would include early intervention components in which preschool children with special needs would receive initial exposure to special needs learning so that they would be well-prepared on entering the kindergarten level under a special needs education class.

         The other reasons for the importance of a special education programme in a school would depend on the particular type of disabilities that need to be addressed by a special needs education programme that should be carried out in a specific school. For example, children with learning disabilities would usually receive individualised education plans because the level of a learning disability would be different from one child to another.

          Therefore, a special needs education plan that is tailor made for a specific child with a certain level of learning disability would make sure that the unique needs of the child is specifically addressed. In addition, children with behavioral or emotional disabilities would also receive special needs education plans based on the particular type of behavioral or emotional disorder.

Qualifications in Becoming a Special Education Teacher

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There are several general and standard qualifications in becoming a special education or special needs teacher that is usually followed and applied throughout the United States regardless of the particular state where the aspiring teacher wants to practice his profession. If you are planning to pursue a career as a licensed or professional special needs teacher, you should know the qualifications for achieving that goal.

Today, the educational qualifications needed for a special education teacher is a four-year bachelor's degree in special education and obtain an accredited teacher training programme that preferably focuses or specialises in specific area of special needs such as developmental or learning disabilities, emotional disturbances, physical disabilities, and other specialisations in special needs education. In addition, many states in the U.S., require the special needs teachers to have master's degrees in special needs education.

The next qualification is taking and passing the state professional certification examination administered by the state so you could become a certified special education teacher in the state where you would practice. But it is also important that you should possess the other qualifications needed to become a special needs education teacher, which are the personal qualifications involving personal characteristics and traits.

As a special needs education teacher, you should have an endless amount of patience and understanding for managing children with medical, mental or psychological disabilities. You should be motivating, adaptable, creative and innovative, and withstand the pressure of working under extreme stress in communicating and negotiating with your students. You should also think out of the box when you think that the conventional approach is not enough for your students. You should also be comfortable and have the patience for doing the large amount of red tape or paperwork required in doing your job such as progress reports, referrals, curriculum changes or revisions, etc.

Planning Special Education Activities

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Special education requires careful planning because its students have learning disabilities that do not allow them to understand lessons as fast and as well as their non-disabled classmates. In designing and planning special education activities, the following factors should be taken into consideration:

Whether the students have physical or emotional deficiencies
Whether the students are developmentally disabled
Whether the students have learning disabilities
If the students are impaired in vision or hearing

With these important factors on the side of the student, it is now time to factor in some general considerations:

Be aware that special students may face unique stressors not typically recognised or seen in a normal student. For example, what may seem to be a fun and engaging activity for a mainstream student could be stressful for an autistic student.
Strictly monitor the incoming sensory stimulation brought about by each activity: hearing new sounds, smelling new scents, recognising new tastes and touching new textures and shapes.
Always assure the students of their personal safety. Understand that for students with special needs, change can be very difficult to accept because their comfort zone is narrow. Thus, introducing new things and new people can seem intimidating.
Be mindful about limiting variables in the environment. Special education students easily experience sensory overload, so keep as much of the environment consistent as possible.
Special education students, as a result of their condition can make difficult situations for a teacher or caregiver. Be prepared for this by keeping a calm and consistent manner. Seeing these traits will build your students' confidence in you when new situations arise.
Take the time to discuss options with your students. Often, a child with special needs have a perspective that there are only two choices when encountering a difficult situation: fight or flight. Practice them to do compromising activities such as asking help from an adult or going into a hallway when they feel threatened.

Special Education

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