SPECIAL EDUCATION

Special Education

Special Education

Introduction

Special education is provided to students with special needs and who need attention. These students include who are disabled in any way or suffer from any abnormality. Teaching such students is a tough job and requires unique skills. Teachers who teach special students must possess high levels of endurance, and should be very patient because special children take a lot of time to learn different things. Many countries have special education centers in regular school where special children are taught (Oakes, 2005). These children are admitted to ordinary schools but are taught in a different environment, and different teachers are hired to teach them.

There are certain children who can be easily identified as special children while looking at their medical history, whereas there are some children who show some abnormality while they are in school. Teachers identify such students as special and take steps to help them learn and evolve.

How has the legal system evolved as it applies to special education over the past 20 years and how has that effected the legal framework for special education today?

In Europe during the 1600s and 1700s, advances were made in educating individuals with disabilities, including those who were deaf or blind or had intellectual disabilities such as mental retardation. These advances came to America during the 1800s and primarily in the provision of services to individuals with disabilities in institutional settings expressly designed for them. Even into the early 20th century, some educational and medical professionals continued to believe that intellectual disabilities in particular were the result of divine punishment for violating natural laws (Friend & Bursuck, 2006). These beliefs were based on studies indicating higher rates of poverty, alcoholism, criminality, and promiscuity among people with intellectual disabilities.

In the very early 20th century, negative beliefs about the origins of such disabilities persisted. The Eugenics movement was very much alive in America at the turn of the 20th century. Eugenicists were concerned that individuals who were “feebleminded” represented a threat to society due to their immoral behavior and rate of birth of illegitimate children. Eugenicists believed intellectual disabilities were largely hereditary and, therefore, separation from the mainstream of society and even sterilization of such individuals were necessary for the greater good. In turn, these beliefs increased the institutionalization of individuals with intellectual and other disabilities. Eugenics lost favor, however, as the century progressed and professionals recognized studies supporting these views were scientifically unsound. Other professionals continued efforts to improve educational services.

Of considerable importance in the early to mid-20th century was the overall political and social climate. Two world wars led to large numbers of Americans suffering both physical and cognitive disabilities. The rehabilitation movement, designed to address the needs of disabled war veterans, became more prominent and eventually would include individuals with all types of disabilities.

The 1970s included the passage of the two major federal laws that reformed special education in the United States. The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 established that no individual, by reason of disability alone, could be excluded ...