Mr. Jerome B.

Ibaez, Reporter

Only the brave dare look upon the gray upon the things which cannot be explained easily; upon the things which often engender mistakes; upon the things whose cause cannot be understood, upon the things we must accept and live with. And therefore only the brave dare look upon difference without flinching. By: Richard H. Hungerford

Special Education Foundation

The study of special education provides a foundation for understanding what it is all about and how it provides needed support and services to individuals with disabilities.

DEFINITION OF SPECIAL EDUCATION

It refers to a range of educational and social services provided by the public school system and other educational institutions to individuals with disabilities who are between three and 21 years of age. It is a specially designed instruction that meets the unique needs of an exceptional child. It is a specially designed instruction, at no cost to parents, to meet the unique needs of the child with disability including instruction conducted in the classroom, in the home, in hospitals and institutions, and in other settings and instruction in physical education (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA Amendments of 1997).

Purpose
Special education is designed to ensure that students with disabilities are provided with an environment that allows them to be educated effectively.

Brief History
In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, otherwise known as Public Law 94-142, to change what was clearly an untenable situation. Despite compulsory education laws that had been in place nationwide since 1918, many children with disabilities were routinely excluded from public schools. Their options: remain at home or institutionalized. Even those with mild or moderate disabilities who did enrol were likely to drop out well before graduating from high school. The Civil Rights Movement and the 1954 Brown V. Board of Education decision which extended equal protection under the law to minorities, paved the way for similar gains for those with disabilities. Parents, who had begun forming special education advocacy groups as early as 1933, became the prime movers in the struggle to improve educational opportunities for their children. Public Law 94-142 proved to be landmark legislation, requiring public schools to provide students with a broad range of disabilities - including physical handicaps, mental retardation, speech, vision and language problems, emotional and behavioural problems, and other learning disorders - with a "free appropriate public education." Moreover, it called for school districts to provide such schooling in the "least restrictive environment" possible. Reauthorized in 1990 and 1997, the law was renamed as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and spawned the delivery of services to millions of students previously denied access to an appropriate education. These students were not only in school, but also, at least in the best case scenarios, assigned to small classes where specially trained teachers tailored their lessons to each student's individual needs. Schools also were required to provide any additional services - such as interpreters for the deaf or computer-assisted technology for the physically impaired - that students needed in order to reach their full potential. And, in more and more cases, special education students began spending time every day in regular classroom settings with their non-special education peers.

CATEGORIES OF EXEMPTIONALITY
Children are eligible to receive special education services and support if they meet the eligibility requirements for at least one of the disabling conditions and if it is determined that they are in need of special education services. The proposed regulations in the FEDERAL REGISTER (October 22, 1997) provide definitions of 13 disability conditions. Students found eligible, or meeting the eligibility requirements for one or more of these categories are eligible for receiving special education programs and services. These definitions and their associated eligibility requirements serve as overall labels. It is to allow students to be identified as individuals who are eligible and in need of receiving special education services. These further provide a common language for understanding the disability condition under which an individual is eligible.

Definitions of Disabling Conditions

(A) Autism A disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction generally evident before age 3, that adversely affects a childs educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences.

(B) Deaf Blindness A concomitant hearing impairment and visual impairment, the combination of which causes such severe communication and other developmental and educational problems.

(C) Deafness A hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification, that adversely affects a childs educational performance.

(D) Emotional Disturbance A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics over a long period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a childs educational performance: -inability to learn that can not be explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors. -inability to maintain or build a satisfactory interpersonal relationship with peers or teachers. -inappropriate types of behaviors or feelings under normal circumstances. general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression. -tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems. The term includes schizophrenia.

(E) Hearing Impairment An impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a childs educational performance.

(F) Mental Retardation

A significantly sub-average general intellectual functioning, existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period, that adversely affects a childs educational performance.

(G) Multiple Disabilities A concomitant impairment (such as mental retardation-blindness, mental retardation-orthopedic impairment, etc), which is a combination of severe educational problems that cannot be accommodated in special education programs solely for one of the impairments. This does not include deaf-blindness.

(H) Orthopedic Impairment A severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects a childs educational performance. The term includes impairments caused by diseases like polio and bone tuberculosis, and impairments from other causes like cerebral palsy, amputations, or fractures and burns that cause contractures.

(I) Other Health Impairments An impairment having limited strength, vitality or alertness, due to chronic or acute health problems such as a heart condition, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, asthma, epilepsy, lead poisoning, leukemia, diabetes, or any illness that would adversely affect a childs educational performance.

(J) Specific Learning Disabilities A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in the understanding or in using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do mathematical computations, also including such conditions as perpetual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction, dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. (K) Speech or Language Impairment A communication disorder, such as stuttering, impaired articulation, a language impairment, or a voice impairment that adversely affect a childs educational performance.

(L) Traumatic Brain Injury An acquired injury to the brain caused by external physical force, resulting in total or partial functional disability or psychological impairment, or both, and that adversely affects a childs educational performance . The term applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairment in one or more areas, such as cognition, language, memory, attention, reasoning, abstract thinking, judgment, problem solving, sensory, perceptual and motor abilities, psychosocial behavior, physical functions, information processing and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital or degenerative, or to brain injuries induced by birth trauma. Visual Impairment Including Blindness

(M)

An impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects the childs educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness

SPECIAL EDUCATION AND SERVICE PROVIDERS

(A) Special Education Teacher An educator who is qualified to design and provide instruction to students with disabilities and has met or has an approved certification that applies to the area in which he or she is providing special education

(B) Resource Room Teacher An educator who provides resource room instruction for individuals with disabilities by either pulling students out of a general education class for one or more hours/periods a day to receive this support in a special education resource classroom, or by working in a general education classroom, may also serve as a collaborator with general education teachers for arranging modifications in general education classrooms.

(C) Itenerant Teacher A teacher or resource consultant who travels between schools or homes to teach or provide instructional materials to students with disabilities.

(D) Speech Language Pathologist A professional who evaluates and develops programs for individuals with speech or language impairments.

(E) Occupational Therapist A professional who delivers activities focusing on fine motor skills and perceptual abilities that assist in improving physical, social, psychological and or other intellectual development.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication Specialist

A specialist who is qualified to meet the needs of individuals who have communication difficulties and who will benefit from special educators and speech-language pathologists providing services that prepare them to use augmentations and alternatives to speaking and writing.
Physical Therapist A professional who is primarily concerned with preventing or minimizing motor disabilities, relieving pain, improving sensorimotor function, and assisting an individual to his or her greatest physical potential following injury, disease, loss of body parts, or congenital disability.

Audiologist
A nonmedical specialist who measures hearing levels and evaluates hearing defects. Educational Psychologist

A professional with expertise in test administration and interpretation, may also have expertise in counseling and working with students in crisis situations .
District Special Education Administrator or Coordinator A professional who oversees special education programs in a school district, may assist with assessment and provide teacher support.

Diagnostician A professional with expertise in test administration and interpretation, the term may be used interchangeably with educational psychologist, although a psychologists role generally requires skills beyond assessment and its interpretation.

Inclusion Specialist
An inclusion facilitator prepared in a special education field, who manages programs of students participating in inclusion programs, responsibilities range from consulting with general education teachers to team planning and co-teaching with general education teachers in inclusion settings.

Individualized Programs and Plans

Individualized programs and plans are at the heart of special education because students found eligible for and in need of special education receive services through the development and implementation of these programs and plan. The programs/plans take into consideration curricular needs identified through assessment, and they outline educational experiences that address a students strengths, challenges, needs and goals.

The IDEA Amendments of 1997 describe three primary individualized programs/plans:

Individualized Family Service Plans (IFSPs) are developed for infants and toddlers and their families (birth to age 3). IFSPs are reviewed every 6 months or more often as appropriate. A complete evaluation of the plan is conducted once a year.

Individualized Education Programs

(IEPs) are developed for children in early intervention programs (ages 3 through 5) and for students ages 6 through 21. Guidelines for the development, implementation, evaluation of these programs are guided by IDEA.

The following are the guidelines in writing IEPs according to IDEA amendments of 1997:

Teams IEP Meetings IEP Documents

IEP

Individualized Transition Plans

(ITPs). The IDEA Amendments of 1997 require consideration for this transition that includes identification of needed transition services as linked with courses of study beginning by age 14 and development of ITP specifying transition services by age 16 or earlier as appropriate

Bibliography
June Lee Bigge, ED.D. and Colleen Shea Stump, PH. D. (1999). Curriculum, Assessment, and Instruction for Students with Disabilities. Daniel P. Hallahan and James M. Kauffman (1988).Exceptional Children Introduction to Special Educatiion 4th edition. Colliers Encyclopedia. History of Special Education. (On http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archeive/16 03/hist163.sl Retrieved June 24,2008. line) Available:

SPED and related providers. (On line) Available: http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos085.htm. Retrieved June 22,2008. Special Education. (On line) Available: http:// education?cat=health. Retrieved April 16,2008. IEPs. (On line) Available: Retrieved June 22,2008. www.answers.com/topic/special-

http://www.edgov/parents/need/space/iepguide/index.

Thank you for listening!!!