Understanding Special Education

What is Special Education?

Special education refers to the education of students with special needs. As a result of the student’s inherent or physical disability, special education platforms provide resources in a way that specifically addresses the students’ individual differences and needs. In an ideal setting, the process of special education involves the individually planned and systematically monitored delivery of teaching procedures, which is personally adapted through the inclusion of specialized equipment and materials and accessible settings designed to aid learners with special needs.

Through the delivery of such resources, special education programs aim to provide those students with special needs the ability to grasp teachings to achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency, as well as an advanced level of success in school and their community. Without the inclusion of these resources and through the delivery of teachings that would be supplied in a typical classroom environment, a special needs student would not be able to grasp the curriculum and a desired level of self-sufficiency to properly assimilate into society.

Common special needs education typically aims to provide aid to students who possess the following disabilities: problems with learning, communication challenges, physical disabilities, emotional and behavioral disorders and developmental disorders. Students who possess these disabilities require the resources and attention offered in a special education platform; these students are likely to benefit from additional educational services, most notably different approaches to teaching, the use of technology to expedite physical or mental impediments and a specifically adapted teaching area.

Special Education in the United States:

All countries will offer and carry-out their specific special education programs in different ways. In the United States, all special-needs students receive an Individualized Education Program, which specifically outlines how the special education program or school will satisfy the student’s individual needs. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, for instance, will require that students with special needs be given a Free Appropriate Public Education in the Least Restrictive Environment that meets the appropriate needs of the student.

Government-run and funded schools in the United States will offer varying degrees of special education, from the least restrictive characteristics, such as full inclusion, to more restrictive settings, such as segregation and the development of a special school.

Regardless of the settings, the education offered by the particular school must meet the student’s individual needs. That being said, schools in the United States are not required to maximize their particular student’s potential or to provide the best special education services provided—they are simply required to provide resources for individual students with special needs that are successful in satisfying the student’s specific needs.

In the United States, approximately 6 million children (based on statistics offered by the Department of Education) or roughly 10% of all school-aged children, currently are entitled to and subsequently receive some sort of special education services. These statistics; however, are somewhat inflated, for they include poor or ethnic minorities who do not speak the dominant language of the region or school. Additionally, those under-funded schools who are not able to cope or provide for students with behavioral problems are added into this equation.

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