Special Education or special needs education is the practice of educating students with special needs in a way that their individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, accessible, and other interventions designed to provide learners with special needs to help create a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and in the community than would be available if the student is only given access to a typical classroom education.
Common special needs include learning disabilities, communication disabilities, emotional and behavioral problems, physical disabilities, and developmental disabilities. Students with these kinds of special needs are likely to benefit from additional educational services such as different approaches to teaching, use of technology, a specifically adapted teaching area, or resource room.
Intellectual giftedness is a difference in learning and can also benefit from specialized teaching techniques or different educational programs, but the term "special education" is generally used to specifically indicate instruction of students with disabilities. Gifted education is handled separately.
While special education is designed for students with special needs, remedial education designed for any student, with or without special needs; the defining characteristic is that they are simply a point of underpreparedness reached, regardless of the reason. For example, even people of high intelligence underprepared if their education during civil unrest or war disrupted, for example, by internal displacement.
In most developed countries, educators change teaching methods and environments so that the maximum number of students are served in general education environments. Therefore, special education in developed countries is often regarded as a service, rather than a place. Integration can reduce social stigmas and improve academic achievement for many students.
The opposite of special education is general education. General education is the standard curriculum presented without special teaching methods or support.
The identification of students with special needs:
Some children are easily identified as candidates for special needs because of their medical history. They can be diagnosed with a genetic condition associated with intellectual disability, various forms of brain damage, may have a developmental disorder, may be visual or hearing disabilities, or other disabilities.
For students with less obvious disabilites, such as those who have learning difficulties, two primary methods have been used for identifying them: the difference model and the response to intervention model. The difference model depends on the teacher noticed that the students' achievements are noticeably below what is expected. The response to intervention model advocates earlier intervention.
In the difference model, a student receives special education services for a specific learning difficulty (SLD) if the student has at least normal intelligence and the student's academic performance is lower than that of a student with his or her IQ expected. Although the difference model dominated the school system for many years, there is a substantial criticism of this approach (eg, Aaron, 1995, Flanagan and Mascolo, 2005) among researchers. One reason for criticism is that diagnosing SLDs on the basis of the difference between achievement and IQ does not predict the effectiveness of treatment. Low academic achievers who also have low IQ appear to benefit from treatment just as much as low academic achievers who have normal or high intelligence.
The alternative approach, response to intervention to identify children who have difficulties in school in their first or second year after starting school. They then receive additional assistance such as participating in a reading remediation program. The response of the children of this intervention then determines whether they are classified as a learning disability. The few who still have trouble may then receive designation and further assistance. Sternberg (1999) has argued that early remediation can greatly reduce the number of children meeting diagnostic criteria for learning disabilities. He also suggested that the focus on learning disabilities and the provision of accommodations in school fails to acknowledge that people have a range of strengths and weaknesses and places undue emphasis on academics by insisting that students this arena and not in music should be supported or sport.
Individual Needs:
A special education program should be tailored to each individual student's unique needs to address. Special educators a continuum of services, which students with special needs receive varying degrees of support based on their individual needs. Special education programs should be individualized so that they address the unique combination of needs in a given student.
In the United States, Canada and the UK, educational professionals used the initialism Individual Education Program when referring to a student's individual education plan. For children not yet 3, an IFSP. (Individual Family Service Plan) It contains 1) information about the child's current level of development in all areas; 2) outcomes for the child and family; and 3) service to the child and family will receive to help them to achieve the outcomes. <© 2011, 2000 PACER Center>
Students with special needs are assessed their specific strengths and weaknesses to determine. Placement, resources and goals are determined based on the student's needs. Hotel and modifications to the regular program may include changes in curriculum, supplementary aides or equipment, and the provision of specialized physical adaptations that enable students to participate in the educational environment as much as possible. Students may need assistance subject to access, access to the school physically get to them or emotional needs. For example, if the assessment determines that the student is not at hand to write because of a physical disability, then the school may use a computer for typing assignments, or allow the student to answer questions orally instead. If the school determines that the student is severely distracted by the normal activities in a large, busy classroom, then the student may be in a smaller classroom as a resource room placed.
