PROPOSAL

A Comparative Study on the Socio-Educational Benefits for Children with Special Needs from
High and Low Income Groups in two Metropolitan Cities of India

Introduction

Children with ‘Special needs’ (SN) can be defined as children who have a disability or a
combination of disabilities that makes learning or other activities difficult. Special-needs
children include those who have: Mental Retardation, which causes them to develop more
slowly than other children; Speech and Language Impairment, such as a problem expressing
themselves or understanding others or Physical Disability, such as vision problem, cerebral
palsy, or other conditions. They may also have Learning Disabilities, which distort messages
from their senses as well as Emotional Disabilities, such as antisocial or other behavioral
problems. Thus SN has a broad spectrum, which can be streamlined into a concise connotation
where these children need ‘special education and support’.

The term Special Needs in the educational setting comes into play whenever a child's education
program is officially altered from what would normally be provided to students through an
Individual Education Plan or Mainstream Curriculum.

All children require care, but children who have exceptional needs because of a physical
disability, chronic health problem, or mental or developmental impairment often require
exceptional levels of care. The costs of this care are borne by families, communities, and public
programs. Childhood disabilities and illnesses are not confined by class, race, or income.
However, poor children living in poor neighborhoods are far more likely than their more
affluent peers to suffer from these conditions.

It has been observed that these financial burdens also translate into direct, material hardship
for these families. Unless they receive public and Government support, families with disabled
children are more likely to be poor or extremely poor than other lower middle income groups/
families.

Thus, it is noted that families with extra care-giving responsibility are also more likely to have
difficulty in running a household and it is often seen that to off-set their extreme economic
hardships these families compromise on educational expenditures which they would have
otherwise spent on their ‘Mainstream’ offspring.
Objective of Study

• To assess the vulnerability of children with SN from a lower income group, their exposure to
peer bulling, harassments and other social evils like physical maltreatment and abuse.

• To observe and assess that children with SN from affluent families have more access to texts
and materials to suit their ages and levels of learning, which is not so for their economically
backward counterparts.

• To study the dearth of proper health care and exigency of hygienic environment for Children
with SN from the lower income groups.

• To observe how children from higher income groups with SN are taught age-appropriate,
functional components of academic content, which may never be part of the curriculum in
segregated settings of Municipal Schools (for example, the sciences, social studies, etc.).

• Assessing the role of intergrated / inclusive schools and their attribution to increase the
probability that students with SN from all socio-economic group will continue to participate in a
variety of integrated settings throughout their lives (Ryndak and Alper, 1996).

• Lastly, to assess the role of the Government in conducting awareness-raising and educational
campaigns for the public, as well as specific groups of professionals, with the aim of preventing
and addressing the social discrimination of children with disabilities and implementing a system
of community services and support for children with disabilities.

Study Area:

The study area will include municipal wards from two Affluent Neighborhoods of Kolkata as
well as two wards from the economically backward pockets of the city.

Similar studies will be made in the NCR region of Delhi.

Methodology:

Having already established the overarching motivation for conducting research concerning this
particular theme and comparative study, it becomes necessary to reflect upon how this can be
suitably accomplished.

Due to the nature of the research, an inductive qualitative approach will be adopted by me,
because it is not possible to identify key variables with old data and experiences from existing
outdated research.
 Furthermore, a qualitative approach will be best suited to explore the complex realities of
socioeconomic inequalities and the inadequacies of Child Rights and Protection laws and thus
allowing for the topic to be investigated thoroughly.

I will also adopt a quantitative approach to give my research topic a more scientific and
coherent leverage.

Conclusion:

When poverty and disabilities intersect, the costs associated with children’s care have
particularly important implications for their families and for society. Poverty-related
compromises in living conditions and health care elevate the risk that children will suffer from
chronic and disabling conditions. At the same time, the care of a disabled or ill child can
increase the risk that the family will be poor by imposing direct costs for medical and other care
and indirect costs in the form of forgone earnings.

Through my study, I want to bring out the fact that the society at large and Government in
particular have the definitive role to help protect these highly vulnerable families from the risk
of economic insecurity and material hardship. Public programs will help reduce these risks
either by increasing the resources that families have available for specialized purchases or by
offsetting the costs of specialized goods and services directly. To the extent that public
programs have these effects, receipt of cash and in-kind assistance may serve an important role
in promoting families’ economic security and ability to care for special needs children at proper
institutions.

Children with disabilities and their families continue to face discrimination and are not yet fully
able to enjoy their basic human rights. The inclusion of children with disabilities is a matter of
social justice and an essential investment in the future of society. It is not based on charity or
goodwill but is an integral element of the expression and realization of universal human rights.