Category: Learning Disability

Psychology assignment

Learning disability: Dyslexia

What is Learning Disability:

Learning disability is a disorder in the nerves of the brain which interferes with the ability to make sense of information. Though learning is a natural trait in every individual, the speed and the capacity to learn differs from individual to individual. In simple terms, someone suffering from a learning disability might find it difficult to make sense of language, reading, math, speech or in their fine mortar skills not because of mental retardation or some socio-economic problem, but because of the way in which their nerves are connected. A person suffering from a learning disability can be as intelligent as his peers or in some cases posse’s higher level of intelligence, but they will find it difficult to cope up in the area of their disability. For example, if someone is suffering from dyslexia (language-based disability), he would find it difficult to solve a math problem in with words while be able to easily solve the same problem if it was presented in numbers. As learning disability has no cure, the right support and guidance will help the person to do better.

Causes for Learning Disability:

Research has not been able to pinpoint as to what exactly causes learning disabilities but over the years, they have identified many factors which can probably cause it. One prominent cause for learning disability can be genes. If a family member may be suffering from a learning disability, there is a possibility that the child could inherit it.

Research also states that if the foetus isn’t given proper nourishment and there is abuse of drugs and alcohol, the foetus can be affected by it. Also in the stages of brain development, if the nerves are damaged or not in the place they are supposed to be, it can cause learning disability. Another factor could be contamination in the intake of water and food. If the amount of chemicals such as lead is more than the normal level, it can effect the brain and cause learning disabilities. So it is very important that the living conditions is safe and harmful toxins do not enter the body of the child. Physical injury to the brain and nervous system can also have an impact. An injury to the head can cause an disrupt the nerves which can interfere in ones learning ability.

Individuals differ in the amount of cognitive strength. Its natural. But in some cases, there is an underlying factor which is reducing the individual’s cognitive strength in the particular area and not the whole. Tutors must understand that there can be a difference among children in their ability to learn and give them the right support instead of terming them as mentally retarded. A solution must be found to tackle the individual’s problem and encourage the child to not give up.

Dyslexia (Language-based learning disability):

It is the disability where a child finds it difficult to read and comprehend problems around language. It is also known as a language-based learning disability. The level of the disability will be different among different individuals. If a child is suffering from dyslexia, the major problem they have is related to the ability to read, pronounce and speak or to make sense of words. They might be unable to keep pace with their peers as their recall, writing ability, reading, spelling will be slow or unable to make sense of.

Researchers have not been able to identify the cause for dyslexia, but studies have shown that the reason for dyslexia can be the difference in the development of the brain of the dyslexic person and normal person. It is this deviation from the normal development which will cause dyslexia. Due to dyslexia, the child will find it difficult to identify alphabets or associate the appropriate sounds to alphabets which makes it difficult for them to read and write. A child suffering from dyslexia is not because the child is not intelligent or has a lack of interest. Its just that for things which are normal to others will be a big challenge to them. But, with the right support and special teaching methods, the dyslexic child will be able to learn better.

Symptoms:

• Struggles to read simple text.
• Shows contrast in comprehension when asked to read information or listen to information.
• Constant spelling errors.
• Finds it challenging to recall known words.
• Substitutes smaller words
• Might find it difficult to write legibly.
• If math questions are in word format, will find it difficult to solve.

To tackle dyslexia, the teachers and the parent must understand that the child is suffering from a learning disability and not the lack of intelligence. The child must be able to feel comfortable. Instead of trying to enforce the standard model, the teacher must use an approach a method which will help the dyslexic kid understand the idea in a manner in which he is able to. For example, if a child finds it difficult to read on his own, the teacher can read it out or ask a student to read it out for the child.

Name: _______________ Date: __________

Worksheet 1

I: Pick the odd one out and write in the blank.

*First one is done for you

1. Apple, Mango, Banana, Watermelon, Capsicum (common factor is fruit)
2. Lion, Tiger, Eagle, Wolf, Elephant (common factor is animal)
3. India, China, Japan, Russia, Bangalore (common factor is country)
4. Trees, Humans, Stone, Animals, Birds (common factor is living things)
5. Car, Boat, Bike, Bicycle, Bus (common factor is land transport)

II: Fill in the blank with correct spelling

• Which planet do we live in _____________? (Earth Erth)
• What is the colour of the sky _____________? (BueeBlue)
• In which season do you use an umbrella ____________? (RainyRainee)
• Which colour is a sign of danger_____________? (RedRid)
• Whom do you visit when you fall ill____________? (DocterDoctor)

Citation:

1. https://ldaamerica.org/types-of-learning-disabilities/dyslexia/
2. http://www.ldonline.org/ldbasics/whatisld
3. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/learning/conditioninfo/causes

How learning is affected when having a Learning Disability

From starting a fire to writing a thesis learning has always been the bridge to any goal attainment. It generates new knowledge which in turn gives us the ability to make better choices in both daily and academic life. Almost every western society promotes the importance of learning because it can be a determinant of a good job and high wage. Because of this, governments and leaders created educational institutions to equip the individual with the knowledge needed to do jobs safely and efficiently. The educational system is constructed in a way that in order to keep on improving, students are required to read and write. This can be seen by some that it limits the individual’s ability and creativity by only giving them the chance to express themselves by using only two mediums. This is the point where it also limits people that have a learning disability. About five percent of the total public schools population have learning disabilities (Lyon, 1996). Having a learning disability means that one has a disorder of psychological process in both using and understanding language. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or IDEA, it is the imperfect ability to listen, speak, read, write, spell, or doing math (Lyon, 1996). Throughout this paper, I am going to focus on three different challenges students face when having a learning disability and also how this leads to the person to be affected holistically.

Note-taking is quite crucial when it comes to learning. It is considered as important as attention and studying. When students start to learn complex things, taking notes could be quite helpful for doing well in exams. Many researchers have conducted studies related to this subject. In the last few decades’ research related to note-taking has been mainly related to three different aspects. The first one is how note-taking affects cognitive variables like attention, memory and comprehension. The second is a comparison between note-taking quality and how it affects learning efficiency. And the third is about using technology in note-taking. Taking notes does not only affect reading ability but also enhances comprehension and recall. It helps the individual to analyze the information presented and think critically about it. To write good notes the learner should find a way to make the notes as clear as possible while minimizing the writing so that he or she could focus on the next part. Good notes are considered as text that is different from the original learning source but still maintains the actual information and the student’s critical thinking. In order for a student to reach the maximum ability to learn, he or she should be given appropriate note-taking instructions (Chang & Ku, 2015). Note-taking is considered as a barrier that limits students with learning disabilities to learn in both academic and professional lives. As the number of students that have a learning disability is increasing by the years, researchers are getting more interested in this area. Hughes and Suritsky (Ruhl & Suritsky, 1995) argued that students having a learning disability find it difficult to take efficient notes from lectures. This is because students that have a learning disability find it frustrating to group information given by the lecturer and using it to elaborate mentally on it. Other difficulties related to note-taking Hughes and Suritsky mentioned are processing auditory information, writing, spelling, and maintaining selective attention. Other research (Boyle, 2012) found that people with learning disability write fewer notes, perform poorly on tests and find it difficult to recall, even right after taking notes when compared to other students without a learning disability. Different researchers have attempted to find a way that benefits and encourages students with learning disabilities to take notes more efficiently. Ruhl (Ruhl & Suritsky, 1995) studied a teaching method called the pause procedure, in which, the lecturer stops three times for two minutes during the lecture to give students time to discuss the lecture and adding on the notes. The results of this procedure managed to show some learning improvement for recall information. Note-taking should not be seen as is because it is a process that consists of understanding, writing, spelling, and reading.

Reading is another significant requirement for having an educational career. Reading enables students to access and understand information of what someone has written in the past. It is crucial for academia because it is almost impossible to teach students in a limited amount of time the knowledge books potentially provide. Reading can be used for revising past lectures but also gives the ability to learn new things. Many studies were carried out to prove the importance of reading especially from an early age (Gabrieli & Norton, 2012). Others, through research, managed to evaluate the differences of reading strategies between students that have a learning disability and those who don’t. One particular study was conducted online by filling a questionnaire. The research consisted of three hundred and seventy-two students. Seventy-seven of these students had a history of some kind of reading difficulties. The main goal of this study was to evaluate the use of metacognitive reading, learning, and studying strategies of both students with history of reading difficulties and not. The study found that students with difficulties to read would increase the chance of academic success if they use metacognitive reading strategies and study aids (Chevalier, Parrila, Ritchie, & Deacon, 2017). Other researchers have written specifically about reading difficulties of students that have a learning disability. The more the student progresses through the educational system the more difficult stories become to understand this is because of increased complexity and the assumption that the more students advance the more they are capable of recognizing and imagining stories. A research (Stetter & Hughes, 2010) comparing different story grammar abilities and age of students found that have a learning disability makes it more difficult when it comes to understanding and recognize reading comprehension. This is because students that have a learning disability are able to call fewer parts of the story and also find it difficult to understand the abstract part of it. The research has found that there are possible methods that could be used in order to help students that have a learning disability to increase the chance of understanding from reading stories. One method is that teachers should actively teach comprehension strategy instructions and metacognitive awareness of comprehension monitoring. This can only be done if the teachers plan the teaching of comprehension and implement comprehension strategies in a way to make it manageable to grasp and understand.

Apart from reading theories, stories, and concepts a student is required to write throughout his or her academic career. It is considered a crucial asset because writing gives proof to what the student has learned and what his or her thoughts on the subjects are. Writing is also emphasized today in society because we are living in a time where technological communication is of vast importance. Moreover, writing is also something that is used in almost all professional careers. Some students might end up working for low-wage jobs just because they do not realize the general process of writing. This process (Kaldenberg, Ganzeveld, Hosp, & Rodgers, 2016) can be divided into three, planning, converting the plan into written text and reviewing the text. Some students might find a problem in one area while others might find difficulty in all. There are multiple different learning disabilities and not all of them mean that these difficulties will be present. Learning Disabilities have been the main research topic to investigate expressive writing (Wheeler, Nickerson, Long, & Silver, 2014). Apart from just investigating the writing of students that have a learning disability most research is more based on finding the best way to help in improving this skill. An interesting research was conducted to try to provide an effective means for student writing. Throughout this research (Chalk, Hagan-Burke, & Burke, 2005), the researchers found that by using Graham and Harris’, Self-Regulated Strategy Development model (SRSD) proved to be beneficial to the students and helped them to improve different strategies like planning, setting goals and reevaluate what was written. SRSD consists of six different stages of instructions created to aid the students that have a learning disability in writing tasks and regulating work that might hinder good performance. Difficulties that students might face when having a learning disability are, creating new ideas, selecting topics, using different writing strategies on different situations, and expressing knowledge about the subject. Some students that have a learning disability might also overestimate their ability to write (Kaldenberg et al., 2016). These are all barriers that could play a role in slower learning because knowing how to write effectively gives the students the ability to express themselves and therefore reflect constructively about their own writing which in return could improve their knowledge.

After discussing three main difficulties students face that have a learning disability, it is also important to consider how these affect the individual as a whole throughout the daily life. Adolescence plays an important role in this issue. It is a time where students experience different things and are being prepared to become an adult. As one might assume this is time of stress for the adolescent because the choices he or she makes might affect a big chunk of their life. Career choice is one of the decisions they must take in order to prepare themselves to join the workforce later. Students that have a learning disability are more susceptible to drop out of school (Arunashree, Sanghvi, & Kadkol, 2016). This is because of emotional disturbances and a higher probability to engage in destructive behavior. These difficulties might leave the students looking toward life in a negative way. Other known issues students with learning disability face are loneliness, problems adjusting, and higher chance of using drugs. Having a learning disability does not mean that one is going to fail in life, in fact, there are some worldwide known people that managed to succeed when having this disability, like Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill, and John F. Kennedy. It simply means that with the right mindset and self-determination anything is possible. An important research (Arunashree et al., 2016) related to this issue is “The Relationship between self-determination and life satisfaction among adolescents with learning disability”. They wanted to conduct this research because most of the previous research was based on the assumption that self-determination and life satisfaction are not correlated with each other when it comes to students that have a learning disability. It was found that students who felt that they were able to plan and making decisions ended up more satisfied than the others. The outcome of this research might help us understand how students with learning disability have to think in order to tackle life issues. This is important because it can guide parents and teachers to help the adolescents be more independent so that way he or she could have a better expectation of the future.

Throughout this paper I managed to explore three different difficulties students with learning disability face in their academic life. Apart from difficulties, different research was pointed out to explore this area in order to find better solutions to aid these people in progressing through different stages in school. The first thing mentioned was note-taking because according to research (Chang & Ku, 2015) knowing how to take effective notes is a good skill for a student that wants to reach his or her maximum potential. Another issue mentioned that is crucial in academia is writing. Reading was discussed in this paper because if used correctly it can give the ability to a student with learning disability to expand his or her knowledge outside the learning environment. Another important skill that goes hand in hand with reading is writing. Writing is important because it equips the students with the independence to share their thoughts and knowledge. The last thing mentioned was how learning disability can affect the person as a whole. Having a learning disability does not mean that failure is vital, it just means that with some effort both from society and the individual, students can achieve their academic goals. After all (Bottley, 2016), “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its life thinking it is stupid”.

References

1. Arunashree, B., Sanghvi, P., & Kadkol, P. (2016). Relationship between self-determination and life satisfaction among adolescents with learning disability. Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing, 7(2), 248-250.
2. Bottley, K. (2016). ‘Fail’ doesn’t mean failure. London:
3. Boyle, J. R. (2012). Note-taking and secondary students with learning disabilities: Challenges and solutions. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 27(2), 90-101. doi:10.1111/j.1540-5826.2012.00354.x
4. Chalk, J. C., Hagan-Burke, S., & Burke, M. D. (2005). The effects of self-regulated strategy development on the writing process for high school students with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly, 28(1), 75-87. doi:10.2307/4126974
5. Chang, W., & Ku, Y. (2015). The effects of note-taking skills instruction on elementary students’ reading. Journal of Educational Research, 108(4), 278-291. doi:10.1080/00220671.2014.886175
6. Chevalier, T. M., Parrila, R., Ritchie, K. C., & Deacon, S. H. (2017). The role of metacognitive reading strategies, metacognitive study and learning strategies, and behavioral study and learning strategies in predicting academic success in students with and without a history of reading difficulties. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 50(1), 34-48. doi:10.1177/0022219415588850
7. Gabrieli, J. E., & Norton, E. (2012). Reading abilities: Importance of visual-spatial attention. Current Biology, 22(9), R298-R299. doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.03.041
8. Kaldenberg, E. R., Ganzeveld, P., Hosp, J. L., & Rodgers, D. B. (2016). Common characteristics of writing interventions for students with learning disabilities: A synthesis of the literature. Psychology in the Schools, 53(9), 938-953. doi:10.1002/pits.21958
9. Lyon, G. R. (1996). Learning disabilities. The Future of Children, 6(1), 54. doi:10.2307/1602494
10. Ruhl, K., & Suritsky, S. (1995). The pause procedure and or an outline – effect on immediate free-recall and lecture notes learning disabilitieents with learning disabilities. Learning Disability Quarterly; Learn.Disabil.Q., 18(1), 2-11. doi:10.2307/1511361
11. Stetter, M. E., & Hughes, M. T. (2010). Using story grammar to assist students with learning disabilities and reading difficulties improve their comprehension. Education and Treatment of Children, 33(1), 115-151. doi:10.1353/etc.0.0087
12. Wheeler, L., Nickerson, S., Long, K., & Silver, R. (2014). Expressive writing in people with traumatic brain injury and learning disability. NeuroRehabilitation, 34(1), 29-37. doi:10.3233/NRE-131007

Introduction

Education as defined according g to the conclusion of the council of European Union (2017,p3) should be “available and accessible to all learners of all ages including those facing challenges, such as those with special needs or who have a disability, those originating from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds, migrant backgrounds of geographically depressed areas or war-torn zones, regardless of sex, race or ethnic origin, religion of bullet disability or sexual orientation.”(MEDE, 2019)

Inclusive education means recognizing and valuing diversity in education settings and according to Mitchell (1999), inclusive education policies allows everyone to be treated equally and given the same status no matter the level of functioning or other personal characteristics. These policies also play a huge role at monitoring and empowering districts, schools, and teachers to work inclusively. (Ciyer, 2010)They also empower families so that they can make sure that children get everything they need in order for them to work effectively. (Project, 2019) Due to south Africa’s dark history of apartheid, each and every policy that was implemented had to make sure that human’s rights win.(Naicker, 2007) To also move from the separated education system of the apartheid era into a more diverse economically and socially empowered society.(Murungi, 2015)

Route to clarity inclusion policy- Local dimension

This policy advocates for all learners that they should get successful through having access to quality education. It also holds the notion, values, and principles of inclusive education into the realm of positively responding to diversity of all learners. According to this policy, individual’s differences are seen as opportunities to enhance learning (UNESCO,2005) by giving every learner the knowledge, skills, competence, and attribute they need for citizenship and employability. It also offers a diverse and universal definition of inclusive education. This policy is needed to bring together all educators, learners and families and community members who will create colleges and schools that are conducive for learning and giving all learners the education, they need. Inclusive education is seen as a way to ensure that all needs of learners are accommodated properly (Kiuppis, 2014) hence the policy is flexible enough to schools to transform existing pedagogical, personal and professional beliefs and to process and practices in a way that will have an effective responses to all learner’s needs and social realities’. This policy serves as a tool to ensure an equitable and accessible education through a learning space that is flexible to respond to how learners learn. To see to it that this policy works, education providers need to be empowered and informed so that they can make sure that the diversity of all learners is valued and supported.(MEDE, 2019)

It defines inclusive education as changing attitudes, behaviors, curricula, and environments to meet the needs of all children. And also, acknowledge and respect differences in children whether due to age, gender, ethnicity, language, class, disability, and HIV status.(Reiss, 1993) White paper 6 is more for children with a range of special needs in education but it prioritizes the education of children living with disabilities. This policy strongly argues that inclusive education demands accepting that all learners have learning needs, it also demands respecting diversity in learning capacities and admit that all children can learn if they are given the support they need. That is why it is needed so that there may be no discriminating against people living with disabilities. And that their intelligence and capabilities may not be reduced to nothing because of the disabilities they live with. While this policy is more for people living with disabilities it does not exclude able bodied people otherwise it would not be inclusion. With that said, this policy acknowledges that all children and youth can learn and also recognizing that different people have different learning needs that need to be valued so as to not make others feel less of a human. This policy is very much needed and of great importance especially for the protection of people living with disability rights as they are still the most violated and discriminated against especially at schools.(Murungi, 2015)

International Convention On The Elimination Of All Forms Of Racial Discrimination

This convention reproves of apartheid and the separation of people of different races, it demands that countries prevent all Acts that might be discriminating other people. It calls for all countries to stand and fight against segregation. This international convention fights the dislike of other people because of their race and it promotes and encourages that people understand and tolerate each other’s different racial and national groups. (The Teaching Project,2019:14)

UN Convention On The Rights Of Persons Living With Disabilities

The convention has followed decades of work by the UN to change the way people see and approach people living with disabilities. Its aim is to change the dehumanizing culture of seeing people living disabilities as objects of charity. It also serves to remind that people living with disabilities have rights and they have the right to claim their rights and make their own decisions.(The Teaching Project,2019:15) It also stands to make sure that people living with disabilities are not excluded from schooling system. It strongly believes that the government should introduce laws and polices to support inclusive education and train teachers for working in inclusive schools with children living with disabilities.(UNICEF, 2017)

Education during and after the apartheid era

According to the knowledge I have, the education system was oppressive to some people and there was segregation in the schooling system. I believe not all people got the quality education they deserved, for example black people were forced to take Afrikaans as a compulsory subject while other home languages were not made compulsory for everyone. After the dark era people could now practice their rights. We now mix and attend school where we want, people choose what they want with regards to schooling. Even though things have not fully changed and be as we all wish but at least major change is visible the education system is inclusive of everyone no matter the race, nationality, or sexual orientations.

Conclusion

After the apartheid era policies of inclusive education were implemented so as to bring about equality to all learners regardless of the race, ethnicity. Religious beliefs and others. All these policies have a common thing which is to advocate for all people to get quality and equal education. The truth is that not all has been achieved. Discrimination and racism are still a concerning matter in schools and at our communities. To date people living with disabilities are treated as objects who cannot make decisions, at schools there is still unfair treatment towards them especially by own peers. The fact that they have their own schools screams exclusion to me, whatever happened to restructuring the education system so as to cater for ALL learners? There are still issues of children who cannot be admitted at schools because of certain reasons while there are policies of inclusive education that forbids the act of denying a child of education regardless of the reasons but at the same time I strongly believe there has been progress. I mean all learners have rights and can put them in use anytime when there is a need. For instance, in this day and age no one does subjects that they do not want, if there are compulsory then everyone takes them and not only a certain group of people. In a nutshell not all is achieved but progress means there is hope.

References

1. Project, T. F. (2019). Inclusive Teaching and Learning For South Africa Unit 1. In T. F. Project, Inclusive Teaching and Learning For South Africa Unit 1 (p. 14). South Africa: British Council.
2. Project, T. T. (2019). Inclusiv e Teaching and Learning For South Africa Unit 1. In T. T. Project, Inclusive Teaching and Learning For South Africa Unit 1 (p. 15). South Africa: British Council.
3. Ciyer, A. 2010. Developing Inclusive Education Policies and Practices in Turkey: A Study of the Roles of UNESCO and Local Educators. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, (December): 258. http://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/822991792?accountid=13380%5Cnhttp://sf5mc5tj5v.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info:ofi/enc:UTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/ProQuest+Dissertations+%26+Theses+Glo.
4. MEDE. 2019. A Policy on Inclusive Education in Schools – Route to Quality Inclusion. : 11–27. https://meae.gov.mt/en/Public_Consultations/MEDE/Documents/A Policy on Inclusive Education in Schools – Route to Quality Inclusion.pdf.
5. Murungi, L.N. 2015. Inclusive basic education in South Africa: Issues in its conceptualisation and implementation. Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal, 18(1): 3160–3195.
6. Naicker, S. 2007. From Policy to Practice: A South-African Perspective on Implementing Inclusive Education Policy. International Journal of Whole Schooling, 3(1): 1–6.
7. Reiss, A.J.J. (Ed). 1993. Understanding and . Washington: 18–20.
8. UNICEF. 2017. Inclusive Education – Understanding Article 24 of the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. : 8. https://www.unicef.org/eca/sites/unicef.org.eca/files/IE_summary_accessible_220917_0.pdf.

With the influence of globalization, except for educational efficiency, filed of education should also focus on the core value of social equity and justice. In the 1970s, various advanced European and American countries have advocated the code concept of social value, such as “righteousness”, “equality” and so on. In order to pursue an equal code value, educational polities among every country and enactments of related laws have been affected, education policy began to slowly shift geared to the needs of vulnerable groups, education philosophy have been set up, including “educational without limit”, “special education”. “no refuse” and “individual learning” for people with disabilities. In this content, countries and other regions have enacted a series of special education laws and policies for the physically and mentally handicapped in order to meet the educational equity, which promotes the development of segregated special education and even the integrated education.

As for the implementation of special education law in the United States, from 1970s to the second millennium, there are two main periods:

The first period is 1970s to1980s. Until the 1970s, according to the previous case, the court would support the state’s education administrative authorities and the public school to close the school gate to children who were disable and despoil their rights to accept education. But by the civil rights movement and equal educational opportunity movement of 1950s and 1960s, influenced all kinds of organizations who were made up of parents of children with physically and mentally disabilities. Under the support of domestic professional educational apartments, political action has been taken, including legal proceedings and lobbying by members of Congress. Finally, Congress passed The Educational for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (EAHCA), referred to as “public law 94-192”. With the continuous promotion of “Justice”, “Equality” and other core social values, The Handicapped Children’s Protection Act of 1986 (HCPA), referred to as “public law 94-142” and The Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities Act of 1986, referred to as “public law 99-457” have also been successively passed. Among these laws, EAHCA was an important milestone in the development of special education in the United Stated. The public law abolished the previous system of denying the admission of students with physical and mental disabilities from 3 to 21 years old to public school, so that these children and adolescents can receive free appropriate public education (FAPE). There are important philosophies as follows: ‘Zero rejection’, ‘Free and Appropriate Education’, ‘Non-Discriminatory Assessment’, ‘Minimum Restrictive Environment’, ‘Parent and Student Participation’ and ‘Individual Education Program’ (IEP) for each student. Public law 99-372 emphasizes that parents or guardians of students with physical and mental disabilities have the right to free judgment if they bring a judicial action under public law 94-142 and win, and the losing party shall compensate the parents with a reasonable attorney’s fee. In addition to ‘public law 99-457’ is also very profound influence on American special education policy, because the law in addition to strengthen the safeguard children with disabilities, also mentioned for the first time for the development of infants and young children with disabilities protection policies, including about the age of 0 to 3 infants and young children with disabilities between providing early intervention services, and special education for preschool children with disabilities to provide support services.

The second period is from 1990s to the 2000s. In1990, the public law 94-142 was amended and renamed as The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), it also known as “public law 101-478”. Bill of this IDEA including the concept of transition services and asked to assist disable students from schools to other schools or engage in other activities, provide effective transition assistance mechanism, interdisciplinary, cross unit cooperation and services for pre-school disabled children and their families. The IDEA Act was amended in 1997 as The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997 (IDEA ’97) and amended in 2004 as The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 2004(The IDEA of ’04). This legislation in addition to stress and include that: autism, visual, impairment, hearing impairment, mental retardation, physical disability, traumatic brain injury and other physical disability and other kinds of children with special education need to be protected. The law also stressed that the state should provide occupational therapy, physical therapy, psychological evaluation and therapy, and other health care services to 0 to 3 years old infants and young children. Special education and complete assessment should be provided to 3 to 21 years old children and teenagers.

The IDEA act stipulated that special education should follow six principles:

1. ‘No exclusion principle’, which referred to schools should guarantee that disabled students have the same right to receive education as ordinary students, and prohibit excluding disabled students from public education;
2. ‘Non-discrimination assessment principle’,
3. ‘Appropriate education principle’, which means that schools should provide appropriate individualized education and corresponding IEP for each special student aged 3 to 21, and develop individualized family service plan and related services for disabled children aged 0 to 2;
4. Principle of least restrictive environment’,
5. Principle of due process’,
6. ‘Principle of parent-student participation’.

These three principles of ‘no rejection’, ‘the principle of appropriate education’ and ‘the principle of minimum limit environment’ also called ‘principles’, which requires schools as far as possible will be special education with other ordinary students in class, only when all kinds of help and service for the students cannot meet their needs, schools only to a certain degree of separation and education will separate education as far as possible to reduce to a minimum extent.

In addition, the United States in 2001, with strong emphasis on education of disadvantaged students fair to conclude ‘Don’t Let Any Child Left Behind Act’ (NCLB), the bill details to conclude about the teaching method, teachers in special education equipment, students’ evaluation of the guidance, to ensure the poor students, special students have equal chance to receive education. Under the basis of NCLB in 2015, to the weak, poor, disabled students, they can be provided better support, the federal government to conclude ‘Let Each Student Success Bill’ (ESSA), inheriting the spirit of the NCLB act that requires equal distribution of educational resources. This also makes amendments to ensure that poor, disadvantaged and special students receive more equitable education and resources.

There are various laws to stipulate that public schools should meet the individual needs of students with physical and mental disabilities, but parents and districts often hold different opinions about what those services should be provided to students or whether students need them or not. Each year, school districts across California pay parents and lawyers millions of dollars to settle thousands of such disputes, which known as due process cases. The number of due process case has been rising in recent years, making the tight budget of school district even worse. Sweetwater, the county’s second-largest school district, paid $400,000 to settle 31 cases, according to district records. And Poway Unified, the county’s third-largest district, paid $1.1 million to settle 25 cases, according to documents obtained through a public record request. Much of the settlement money went to reimburse parents for past or future special education services, services that parents say should have been covered by the district. Through due process cases, school districts have agreed to pay for tutoring, private assessments of students and even private school tuition and transportation for students with disabilities. However, due process is controversial among families and school districts. Parents with disable children who do not receive appropriate service believe that lawsuit is the only way to deal with resource imbalance problems and being refused to evaluated for their children. A lack of funding for services and a lack of training by schools play a big role in current situation. Whereas, no matter how dissatisfying the situation is, regions are trying their best to improve: according to San Diego Unified Special Education Executive Director Sarah Ott:” Poway Unified has been working to decrease due process cases by resolving them with a process called alternative dispute resolution. There are no lawyers involved in alternative dispute resolution, just the district’s special education director, parents and a third-party arbitrator to help facilitate.”