Special Needs Education



Special Needs Education

Introduction

Special Needs Education is the education of individuals who have learning difficulties because of some handicaps resulting from visual, auditory, emotional, or other physical disabilities due to circumstances of birth, mental or physical health patterns or accident in later life. It also caters for the Gifted and Talented. Special Needs Education can be looked at as a way of treating people as individuals. The gifted and talented are provided with programmes to encourage them to go at their own pace while those with physical problems which affect their education are provided with such programmes that take care of their individual learning needs with the goal of making them enjoy and benefit from available education. In other words, Special Needs Education focuses on the individual who experiences difficulties with his or her academic and adaptive behaviour as well as general learning problems(Stainback and Stainback 2000).

Case

Mogobe is an asthmatic student. She was always irritated by the dust from the chalk and dust in the class during lectures. She stayed away from classes most of the time. This affected her performance. Michael is epileptic. He remained withdrawn. He was afraid to attend classes taking place upstairs. He was always worried about having an attack. The uncertainty of the unknown for example when the next attack will take place - the humiliation the attacks bring with them. This affected his learning, academic performance and social life.

Discussion

According to Abosi (1999), 'special groups' of students can be defined as those students who experience difficulty with their learning due to physical, psychological, health, school and/or environmental factors. This group includes both gifted and non-gifted students. For example, a 'gifted/talented' learner could experience learning difficulties if not catered for. This could result in the development of subversive behavior. (Armbrester 2002)

Special needs education is part of general education which treats people as individuals, adapting relevant equipment, personal curriculum and methods to overcome both identifiable and unidentifiable problems that obstruct learning. Lecturers should become more sensitive towards a heterogeneous student body. There is a wide range of special needs in the same classroom today. Some of the concerns of 'special needs' education in higher education include the fact that some students experience difficulties in learning and thus not make the grade. It is important to establish institutional support services that can accommodate problems.

Every individual has his or her characteristic way of learning and each disabled and gifted student's learning patterns may or may not relate to conditions of disability defined in medical terms. In the teaching and learning situation, it is important to stress that no method is best except that method which effects a positive change in the individual.

A student with SEN is a student who:

has a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of pupils of their age, or

has a disability which means that they cannot make full use of the general educational facilities provided for pupils of their age.

A pupil with SEN is entitled to receive full-time education that is ...