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Special education (also known as special-needs education, aided education, alternative provision, exceptional student education, special ed., SDC, and SPED) is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates their individual differences, disabilities, and special needs. This involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, and accessible settings. These interventions are designed to help individuals with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and in their community, which may not be available if the student were only given access to a typical classroom education.

Special education aims to provide accommodated education for disabled students such as learning disabilities, learning difficulties (such as dyslexia), communication disorders, emotional and behavioral disorders, physical disabilities (such as osteogenesis imperfecta, cerebral palsy, lissencephaly, Sanfilippo syndrome, and muscular dystrophy), developmental disabilities (such as autism spectrum disorder, and intellectual disabilities) and other disabilities.^[1] Disabled students are likely to benefit from additional educational services such as different approaches to teaching, the use of technology, a specifically adapted teaching area, a resource room, or a separate classroom.

Some scholars^[who?] of education may categorize gifted education under the umbrella of "special education", but this pedagogical approach is different from special education because of the students' capabilities. 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 disabled students.

Whereas special education is designed specifically for students with learning disabilities, 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 unpreparedness, regardless of why. For example, if a person's 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.^{[2][3][4][5][6]} Integration can reduce social stigmas and improve academic achievement for many students.^[7]

The opposite of special education is general education, also known as mainstream education. General education is the standard curriculum presented without special teaching methods or supports. Sometimes special education classrooms and general special education classrooms mix. This is called an inclusive classroom.

History

In the past, most students with special needs have been excluded from school.^[8] On November 19, 1975, The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) was passed by President Gerald Ford. The IDEA law provides free appropriate education with services to individuals with disabilities.^[9] Such exclusion still affects about 23 million disabled children worldwide, particularly in poor, rural areas of developing countries.^[10] National Special Needs Day is celebrated every December 9th of the year.

Identifying students or learners with special needs

Some children are easily identified as candidates for special needs due to their medical history. For example, they may have been diagnosed with a genetic condition that is associated with intellectual disability, may have various forms of brain damage, may have a developmental disorder, may have visual or hearing disabilities, or other disabilities.

On the other hand, for students with less obvious disabilities, such as those who have borderline intellectual disability or specific learning difficulties (dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc.), two primary methods have been used for identifying them: the discrepancy model and the response to intervention model.^[11] The discrepancy model depends on the teacher noticing that the students' achievements are noticeably below what is expected, at which point the teacher may make the decision for the student to receive support from a special education specialist. Before doing so, the teacher must show documentation of low academic achievement. The response to intervention model advocates earlier intervention.

In the discrepancy 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 achievement is below what is expected of a student with his or her IQ. Although the discrepancy model has dominated the school system for many years, there has been substantial criticism of this approach (e.g., Aaron, 1995, Flanagan and Mascolo, 2005) among researchers. One reason for criticism is that diagnosing SLDs on the basis of the discrepancy 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, identifies children who are having 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 to this intervention then determines whether they are designated as having a learning disability. Those 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 has 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 should be supported in this area and not in music or sports.

Individual needs

A special education program should be customized to address each student's needs. Special educators provide a continuum of services, in which students with various disabilities receive multiple degrees of support based on their individual needs. It is crucial for special education programs to be individualized so that they address the unique combination of needs in a given student.^[12]

In the United States, Canada, and the UK, educational professionals use a student's Individualized Education Program (IEP). Another name for a student's Individualized Education Plan is a student's Individual Learning Plan (ILP).

"The IEP is meant to address each child’s unique learning issues and include specific educational goals. It is a legally binding document . The school must provide everything it promises in the IEP."^[13]

In the US, for children who are not yet three years old, an Individual Family Service Plan (IFSP) contains information on the child's present level of development in all areas; outcomes for the child and family; and services the child and family will receive to help them achieve the outcomes.

In the United States, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal law that requires every school system to provide a free and appropriate public education for every child, ages 3 to 22, regardless of how or how seriously that child may be disabled.^[14] To ensure that this federal law is obeyed, the government requires every school system provide this type of education to each student in order to receive federal funding.^[14] This changed a little in 2004 when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) decided to update the law. After the law was updated into the Disabilities Education Improvement Act, the ability to identify special needs children and give them the appropriate education environment was improved.^[15]

Students with all forms of special needs are assessed to determine their specific strengths and weaknesses.^[12] The earlier these students with special needs are assessed, the faster they get the accommodations that they need, and the better it is for their education.^{[citation needed]} 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 aids or equipment, and the provision of specialized physical adaptations that allow students to participate in the educational environment as much as possible.^[16] 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 separate classroom or resource room.

Parents of students with a learning disability must be aware of what type of disability their child has, so they can get access to accommodations such as speech therapy, occupational therapy and adaptive physical education. For example, if a student takes an academic test and it indicates that the student struggles with reading comprehension, parents can request speech and language support or classroom accommodations, such as extra time to complete reading and writing tasks.^[17]

Methods of provision

In most developed countries, 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. Due to the fact that 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.^[18][19] 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 separate classroom, resource room, or to receive other related services that might require specialised 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.^[20]
• 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 classrooms exclusively for students with special needs for the rest of the school day.^[21][22]
• 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 various disabilities. 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.^[23] Alternatively, these students may attend a special school.^[21] It may also occur when a student is in hospital, housebound, or detained by the criminal justice system. These students may receive one-on-one instruction or group instruction. Students who have been suspended or expelled are not considered segregated in this sense.

• Co-teaching: In this setting, disabled students are placed in a general education classroom to learn along with their disabled peers and non-disabled peers. A general education teacher and a special education teacher work as partners in instruction. Types of co-teaching include "one teaching/one helping" in which one teacher instructs while the other circulates around the class to evaluate and offer help, "parallel teaching" in which both teachers teach the same content to two groups of students of equal size, "station teaching" in which both teachers present differing content to different groups of students simultaneously and students rotate through each station, "alternative teaching" in which one teacher works with a smaller group or individual students while the other works with the rest of the class, and "team teaching" in which both teachers plan and teach a lesson together.^[24]

Effective instruction for disabled students

• Goal-directed: Each child must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that distinguishes their particular needs. The child must get the services that are designed for them. These services will allow them to reach their 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: A lot of research has been done regarding disabled students 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 a number 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 too easy.^[25]

Special schools

A special school is a school catering for students who have special educational needs due to 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 are 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 US in the light of the least restrictive environment as mandated in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.^[26]

An alternative is a special unit or special classroom, also called a self-contained classroom, which is a separate classroom dedicated solely to the education of students with special needs within a larger school that also provides general education.^[27] This classroom is typically staffed by a specially trained teacher, who provides specific, individualized instruction to individuals and small groups of students with special needs. Separate classrooms, because they are located in a general education school, may have students who remain in the separate classroom full-time, or students who are mainstreamed in certain general education classes. An alternative to the separate classroom full-time for a student would be a one-to-one aide in the general education setting. In the United States, a one-on-one aide for a student with a disability is called a paraprofessional. In the United States a part-time alternative that is appropriate for some students is sometimes called a resource room. Another alternative would be attending a separate classroom for a specific subject such as social studies.

Seclusion is the practice of involuntarily locking a student in a isolated room, utility closet or office alone without the ability to leave until school staff allows. The use of a seclusion room is often misused as a form of punishment for disrespecting staff or leaving the classroom.^[28][29][30]

History of special schools

One of the first special schools in the world was the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris, which was founded in 1784. It was the first school in the world to teach blind students.^[31] The first school in U.K. for the Deaf was established 1760^[32][33] in Edinburgh by Thomas Braidwood, with education for visually impaired people beginning in the Edinburgh and Bristol in 1765.

In the 19th century, people with disabilities and the inhumane conditions where they were supposedly housed and educated were addressed in the literature of Charles Dickens. Dickens characterized people with severe disabilities as having the same, if not more, compassion and insight in Bleak House and Little Dorrit.^[34]

Such attention to the downtrodden conditions of people with disabilities brought resulted in reforms in Europe including the re-evaluation of special schools. In the United States reform came more slowly. Throughout the mid half of the 20th century, special schools, termed institutions, were not only accepted, but encouraged. Disabled students were housed with people with mental illnesses, and they were not educated much, if at all.^[35]

Deinstitutionalization proceeded in the US beginning in the 1970s following the exposes of the institutions, and it has taken sometime before the Education for All Handicapped Children's Act of 1974, to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and then Individuals with Disabilities Educational Improvement Act (IDEIA) have come into fruition.^[36] School integration was supported as early as the 1970s, and teacher preparation programs in higher education have carefully taught and instructed graduates on inclusion at the classroom, individual, school, and district levels for decades resulting in dual certification of "regular teachers".

With the Amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1997, school districts in the United States began to slowly integrate students with moderate and severe special needs into regular school systems. This changed the form and function of special education services in many school districts and special schools subsequently saw a steady decrease in enrollment as districts weighed the cost per student. It also posed general funding dilemmas to certain local schools and districts, changed how schools view assessments, and formally introduced the concept of inclusion to many educators, students and parents.^[37]

Instructional strategies

The student can be taught in either a classroom or outside environment. Both environments can be interactive for the student to engage better with the subject.^[38]

Different instructional techniques are used for some students with special educational needs. Instructional strategies are classified as being either accommodations or modifications.

An accommodation is a reasonable adjustment to teaching practices so that the student learns the same material, but in a format that is more accessible to the student. Accommodations may be classified by whether they change the presentation, response, setting, or scheduling of lessons.^[39] For example, the school may accommodate a student with visual impairments by providing a large-print textbook. This is a presentation accommodation. A modification changes or adapts the material to make it simpler.^[40] Modifications may change what is learned, how difficult the material is, what level of mastery the student is expected to achieve, whether or how the student is assessed, or any other aspect of the curriculum.^[41] For example, the school may modify a reading assignment for a student with reading difficulties by substituting a shorter, easier book. A student may receive both accommodations and modifications.

Examples of modifications

• Skipping subjects: Students may be taught less information than typical students, skipping over material that the school deems inappropriate for the student's abilities or less important than other subjects. For example, students with poor fine motor skills may be taught to print block letters, but not cursive handwriting.
• Simplified assignments: Students may read the same literature as their peers but have a simpler version, such as Shakespeare with both the original text and a modern paraphrase available.^[42]
• Shorter assignments: Students may do shorter homework assignments or take shorter, more concentrated tests.
• Extra aids: If students have deficiencies in working memory, a list of vocabulary words, called a word bank, can be provided during tests, to reduce lack of recall and increase chances of comprehension. Students might use a calculator when other students do not.
• Extended time: Students with a slower processing speed may benefit from extended time for assignments and/or tests in order to have more time to comprehend questions, recall information, and synthesize knowledge.
• Students can be offered a flexible setting in which to take tests. These settings can be a new location to provide for minimal distractions.

Examples of accommodations

• Response accommodations:^[39] Typing homework assignments rather than hand-writing them (considered a modification if the subject is learning to write by hand). Having someone else write down answers given verbally.
• Presentation accommodations:^[39] Examples include listening to audiobooks rather than reading printed books. These may be used as substitutes for the text, or as supplements intended to improve the students' reading fluency and phonetic skills. Similar options include designating a person to read to the student, or providing text to speech software. This is considered a modification if the purpose of the assignment is reading skills acquisition. Other presentation accommodations may include designating a person to take notes during lectures or using a talking calculator rather than one with only a visual display.
• Setting accommodations:^[39] Taking a test in a quieter room. Moving the class to a room that is physically accessible, e.g., on the first floor of a building or near an elevator. Arranging seating assignments to benefit the student, e.g., by sitting at the front of the classroom.
• Scheduling accommodations:^[39] Students may be given rest breaks or extended time on tests (may be considered a modification, if speed is a factor in the test). Use a timer to help with time management. Students with a disability that can flare up unexpectedly may be allowed to turn in an assignment or take a test shortly after the episode has resolved.^[43] This system, called flexible deadlines, treats an occasional, unexpected episode of illness or incapacity caused by a disability similar to an equivalent episode of an unexpected viral infection. These students or their families should inform the teachers of the problem and turn in the missed work soon after the student is well enough to return to school (typically, one to three days after the return to class).^[43]

All developed countries permit or require some degree of accommodation for students with special needs, and special provisions are usually made in examinations which take place at the end of formal schooling.^[39] Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Special_education
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