A research paper about

Special education or special needs education

By : Fatima Yahya ALRumithi ID: 200919536 Instructor : Dr.Ghadah Morshedi

Special education or special needs education

is the practice of educating students with special needs in a way that addresses their individual differences and needs. Ideally, this process involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help learners with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and community than would be available if the student were only given access to a typical classroom education. Common special needs include learning disabilities, communication disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities, and developmental disabilities.[1] Students with these kinds of special needs are likely to benefit from additional educational services such as different approaches to teaching, the use of technology, a specifically adapted teaching area, or a 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. Whereas special education is designed specifically for students with special needs, remedial education can be designed for any students, with or without special needs; the defining trait is simply that they have reached a point of under preparedness, regardless of why. For example, even people of high intelligence can be underprepared if their education was disrupted, for example, by internal displacement during civil disorder or a war. In most developed countries, educators modify 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 supports. A special education program should be customized to address each individual student's unique needs. Special educators provide a continuum of services, in which students with special needs receives varying degrees of support based on their individual needs. Special education programs need to be individualized so that they address the unique combination of needs in a given student.[8]

In the United States, Canada, and the UK, educational professionals use the initialism IEP when referring to a students individualized education plan .

Individual needs :

Students with special needs are assessed to determine their specific strengths and weaknesses.[8] Placement, resources, and goals are determined on the basis of the student's needs. Accommodations and Modifications to the regular program may include changes in the curriculum, supplementary aides or equipment, and the provision of specialized physical adaptations that allow students to participate in the educational environment as much as possible. Students may need this help to access subject matter, physically gain access to the school, or meet their emotional needs. For example, if the assessment determines that the student cannot write by hand because of a physical disability, then the school might provide a computer for typing assignments, or allow the student to answer questions verbally instead. If the school determines that the student is severely distracted by the normal activities in a large, busy classroom, then the student might be placed in a smaller classroom such as a resource room.

Methods of provision:
Schools use different approaches to providing special education services to students. These approaches can be broadly grouped into four categories, according to how much contact the student with special needs has with non-disabled students (using North American terminology):

Inclusion: In this approach, students with special needs spend all, or most of the school day with students who do not have special needs. Because inclusion can require substantial modification of the general curriculum, most schools use it only for selected students with mild to moderate special needs, which is accepted as a best practice.[10][11] Specialized services may be provided inside or outside the regular classroom, depending on the type of service. Students may occasionally leave the regular classroom to attend smaller, more intensive instructional sessions in a resource room, or to receive other related services that might require specialized equipment or might be disruptive to the rest of the class, such as speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, rehabilitation counseling. They might also leave the regular

classroom for services that require privacy, such as counseling sessions with a social worker.[12] Mainstreaming: refers to the practice of educating students with special needs in classes with non-disabled students during specific time periods based on their skills. Students with special needs are segregated in separate classes exclusively for students with special needs for the rest of the school day.[13] Segregation: in a separate classroom or special school for students with special needs: In this model, students with special needs do not attend classes with non-disabled students. Segregated students may attend the same school where regular classes are provided, but spend all instructional time exclusively in a separate classroom for students with special needs. If their special class is located in an ordinary school, they may be provided opportunities for social integration outside the classroom, such as by eating meals with non-disabled students.[14] Alternatively, these students may attend a special school.[13] Exclusion: A student who does not receive instruction in any school is excluded from school. In the past, most students with special needs have been excluded from school.[15] Such exclusion still affects about 23 million disabled children worldwide, particularly in poor, rural areas of developing countries.[16] It may also occur when a student is in hospital, housebound, or detained by the criminal justice system. These students may receive one-onone instruction or group instruction. Students who have been suspended or expelled are not considered excluded in this sense.

Effective Instruction for students with disabilities

Goal Directed: Each child must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that distinguishes his/her particular needs. The child must get the services that are designed for him/her. These services will allow him/her to reach his/her annual goals which will be assessed at the end of each term along with short term goals that will be assessed every few months. Research-Based Methods- There has been a lot of research done about students with disabilities and the best way to teach them. Testing, IQs, interviews, the discrepancy model, etc. should all be used to determine where to place the child. Once that is determined, the next step is the best way for the child to learn. There are plenty of different programs such as the Wilson Reading Program and Direct Instruction Guided by student performance- While the IEP goals may be assessed every few months to a year, constant informal assessments must take

place. These assessments will guide instruction for the teacher. The teacher will be able to determine if the material is too difficult or to easy.

Special schools:
A special school is a school catering for students who have special educational needs due to severe learning difficulties, physical disabilities or behavioral problems. Special schools may be specifically designed, staffed and resourced to provide appropriate special education for children with additional needs. Students attending special schools generally do not attend any classes in mainstream schools. Special schools provide individualized education, addressing specific needs. Student to teacher ratios are kept low, often 6:1 or lower depending upon the needs of the children. Special schools will also have other facilities for children with special needs, such as soft play areas, sensory rooms, or swimming pools, which necessary for treating students with certain conditions. In recent times, places available in special schools are declining as more children with special needs are educated in mainstream schools. However, there will always be some children, whose learning needs cannot be appropriately met in a regular classroom setting and will require specialized education and resources to provide the level of support they require. An example of a disability that may require a student to attend a special school is intellectual disability. However this practice is often frowned upon by school districts in the USA in the light of Least Restrictive Environment as mandated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

UAE Education
4,700 special needs pupils integrated into Abu Dhabi public schools
Abu Dhabi: Nearly 4,700 pupils with special needs are currently integrated into public schools across the emirate of Abu Dhabi, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) announced in a statement on Sunday.

To ensure that these pupils are educated based on specific Adec standards and policies, a two-day workshop was recently conducted for 130 special education professionals working in public schools based in the capital. The training focussed on the different types of speech and language disorders, their causes, and the methods of diagnosis. The educators were also familiarised with various techniques used to assist children with these disorders. A similar workshop will also be organised this week for 130 teachers from schools in Al Ain and Al Gharbia in the Western Region

Teachers attitudes :
Seven out of the sixteen school teachers believed that students with special needs should be educated in the mainstream classroom (mainstream school) whereas seven other believed that they should be educated in the mainstream school but in a special class. One teacher stated that those childrens place in the school system is in special schools and another teacher sees a combination of the first two options. Those teachers gave their views based on the arguments of socialization, special classs benefits, negligence of students needs in the mainstream giving answers such us the following: In the mainstream school they are better socialized and they dont feel the rejection of society. They feel parts of the whole, like the rest of the children. With the prerequisite that mainstream school includes in its design all childrens needs, then the mainstream classroom favors the development of all children. It is worth mentioning the case of one teacher, who believes in integration, but uses terminology that refers to the charity model: Children, either with special needs or normal, develop feelings, they learn to love and to accept love. The arguments of teachers believing that students with special needs should attend a special class inside the mainstream school are based on the supposed benefits of a special classroom. However, W ade and Moore (1994) point that students attending special classes are isolated from their peers, something that was also revealed in Study 2, which will be presented later in this paper. In the present study, those teachers believe that most of the lessons [in the mainstream classroom] dont offer them anything, or that in the special class the student will have lessons that please him, they should attend the mainstream school so that they are not isolated and the special classroom in order to be handled more correctly and be provided with more help and attention, because they will be totally integrated in the whole (they will not feel isolated) and they will be in a classroom where they will progress and they might feel more self-confident.

Students :
Students answers referring to the charity model include phrases such as: they are innocent, harmless, or disgusting, helpless people, unhappy, sick, weird, introvert, lonely, they have a problem, they need help/care/love/affection, they are children with special abilities. On the other hand, students answers within the framework of the human rights model include the following phrases: they have the same rights as we do, we are the same, we are equals, no one is perfect, we dont have differences.

Almost all students seem to believe that we must be friends with people with special needs, although the observation and the interviews showed that the above are mostly empty words. This is obvious if one looks at the students explanations. Less than one third of the students answers refers to the human rights model (30%), one third to the charity model (35%) and one third (35%) to the combination model, which shows their confusion. Charity model answers in this question were like the following: [We must be friends with people with special needs] so that they feel that we love them. If we reject them, they will feel bad and we will harm their psychological health, because one day they might have something and we must take care of them, because they need to feel like normal people , to be near all these that normal people live, and above all, they need to be happy. Students who gave answers that refer to the human rights model stated: Because they are humans too, and they have equal rights,, because none is below the others, we are all equals. Students believing we must not be friends with people with special needs, explained that I dont find it normal, I dont have anything with sick children but I feel that we belong to different worlds, I don t know why I believe that I cant be with them, probably because I could not speak to them and get them to understand me, because they dont understand anything nor can they do anything. Another group of students gave a combination model answer, such as It doesnt matter if they have a problem, because they also have a place in this world. They are like us , so we must help them and take care of them in every way , they are like us , they are just a little bit sick . , they are children too, and it doesnt matter if they are a little weird, they could also play some games with us . These answers indicate that while students consider children with special needs as equals, with equal rights, they also have formed in their minds the picture of a sick, weird child, with deficits which we -the real people- must help to feel like us.

Results :

The matter which needs to be pointed out initially is that there is a variety of opinions concerning the definition of integration. Some of the teachers and two principals believe that integration means the seating of children with special needs into mainstream schools. In the same way, some others add the social aspect of the integration integration is the seating of children with special needs into mainstream classes for socialization purposes. There was also an opinion expressed by three mainstream teachers. For them, integration means the seating of children with special needs in special units of the mainstream schools and attending mainstream classrooms only for few lessons just for socialization purposes. This definition contains a paradox of how integration can be promoted by segregated education . Barton and Tomlinson (1984) ( in Vlachou , 1998) assert that under these circumstances , a special protective educational environment is offered, an environment which has no commonalities with the challenges and the complexities of a usual one. According to the principals the issues which contribute to the success of the institution are: the teachers training, the suitable treatment on the part of the educators as well as the acceptance of children with special needs from their peers. Likewise, Bailey & Plessis (1997) in their own research, found out that the two important things for a good implementation of integration in principals point of view is the staff, material, building resources and educators training. Despite the educators training, special teachers claim that the existence of more proper criteria and the conduction of more suitable evaluation can lead to a more effective implementation of the institution. As they argued there are some types of disabilities which cannot be integrated into mainstream schools because they can not benefit from mainstream education. This finding is in absolute agreement with the Vaughn et al (1996) study . According to them, special teachers are worried how the mainstream school is going to fulfill the needs of children with special educational needs. Similarly, mainstream teachers face their training and the acceptance of children with special needs by their peers and themselves as essential factors for the success of the institution. Additionally , two teachers underline that the appropriate building and technical equipment which support the children, are crucial for the effectiveness of the integration.

Children with learning difficulties should not be placed in special education, because on the basis of my previous experience, they managed to correspond on the class level. Indeed, in some cases I had pupils with learning difficulties who were very good students

References:

What is special education? from New Zealand's Ministry of Education http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/education/4-700-special-needs-pupilsintegrated-into-abu-dhabi-public-schools-1.1103277 http://www.isec2005.org/isec/abstracts/papers_p/phtiaka_h.shtml