Educating Special Needs Students

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Table of Contents

Definitions
Areas of Curriculum Necessary for Students with Severe Disabilities
Special Education Policies in Sky View Elementary School District
References

Intellectual disabilities pose a great challenge to students, parents, and teachers alike. The effects of these disabilities vary from individual to individual and usually require intensive management. This partly arises from the wide range of differences in the types of intellectual disabilities, and differences in the range of impairment even among students suffering from the same type of intellectual disability.

This paper explores different types of disabilities and their impacts, to review the efficacy of policy initiatives meant to streamline the management of students with intellectual disabilities in the Sky View Elementary School District.

Definitions

This paper discusses the main types of intellectual impairments. These disabilities include intellectual disability, autism, severe disabilities, and multiple disabilities.

This section reviews the definitions of each of these conditions. According to the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD), intellectual disability describes a condition characterized by “significant limitation in both intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior”.

The condition must be existent before the age of 18 for it to fit in this definition. The main causes of intellectual disability are genetic factors, malnutrition during pregnancy, birth trauma resulting in asphyxiation, and illness or injury leading to brain damage. They can occur before or after birth.

Autism covers a wide range of developmental impairments. Modern literature does not refer to autism as a single condition but as a spectrum. The autism spectrum reflects the varying severity of autism in autistic persons. Autism refers to a developmental disorder that generally inhibits the development of the skills needed in “communication and social interaction”. An autistic person may or may not have learning difficulties.

There is no consensus on the actual cause of autism. However, there is a growing body of evidence linking the occurrence of autism to genetic predisposition. However, the onset of the condition depends on environmental factors during pregnancy, during childbirth, and the initial days after birth.

Severe disabilities and multiple disabilities refer to a special category of impairments. Usually, people with severe disabilities require help in more than one area of their life to live normally. Severe disabilities usually include retarded mental development.

In the case of multiple disabilities, one person usually suffers from more than one disability. For instance, a person may experience mental retardation and a form of physical disability. In these cases, the person requires full-time care to live normally. Severe and multiple disabilities results from various causes. These causes include prenatal conditions, birth defects, accidents, infections, and exposure to toxins.

The impacts of intellectual disability, autism, and severe and multiple disabilities on education are very many. These impacts vary from case to case, and the degree of education possible depends on the severity of the underlying conditions. Some of the impacts of these disabilities on education are as follows. First, the students need full-time care in addition to specialized instructors.

This means that schools must use more resources to take care of special children. Secondly, schools need special equipment to take care of the special needs of these children. For instance, a teacher in a normal school may have the option of using chalkboards and projectors as teaching aids. In a special school, it may be difficult to use these facilities because of low attention spans among students.

The teacher must use an individualized approach to teach each student. Thirdly, special schools compete with normal schools for resources. Public schools have greater political power because of the huge number of students they handle. This makes it difficult for special schools to get additional resources to cater for the special needs of intellectually impaired students.

Areas of Curriculum Necessary for Students with Severe Disabilities

The areas of curriculum necessary for students with severe disabilities exceed those required for normal students. This arises from the fact that students with severe disabilities usually need more time and practice to master basic life skills.

By the time they attain school-going age, it is still common for them to require help with basic skills such as going to the bathroom. In this regard, their instructors must use a wider curriculum to help them to develop their skills.

The main areas of focus in the training of students with special needs are as follows. First, a student with severe disabilities needs training to master basic life skills. In this regard, basic life skills refer to activities such as eating, using the bathroom, dressing up, and even crossing roads. The severity of the impairment plays an important part in the decision to teach them these skills.

Secondly, the curriculum for students with severe disabilities should include communication skills. The teaching of communication skills must correlate to the ability of the student.

For instance, some autistic students can learn how to speak and can increase their vocabulary. Some cannot speak at all, and may only benefit from the use of sign language. In this case, the development of the teaching plan for each student must take into account the potential of the student.

The third aspect of the curriculum intended for students with severe disabilities must be the development of social skills. The main issue in this regard is that the failure to develop practical social skills can impair their ability to fit in society after school.

In any case, students with severe disabilities also need to know how to interact with their families, friends, and acquaintances as part of their daily lives. The challenge is greater for curriculum developers in cases where the students avoid contact with other people.

The fourth aspect that must form part of the curriculum for the training of students with severe disabilities is safety skills. Walking alongside a road is a completely mindless affair for a normal person, but may be life-threatening for a person with an impairment that hinders their ability to assess the danger posed by traffic.

For instance, if an autistic child notices that the road has continuous lines between lanes, the child may try to walk at the center of that road. Safety education can help to reduce or eliminate the dangers associated with such behavior.

The final area needed in special school curriculums is academic skills. Some students with severe impairment can learn how to read, write, and calculate. In this regard, the curriculums must support the development of intellectual skills up to the highest attainable level.

Special Education Policies in Sky View Elementary School District

The Sky View Elementary School District special education program has many positive traits and seems to compare well with the curriculum elements discussed in the previous section. The notable aspects of the special education program at Sky View are as follows.

First, the district has acknowledged the diversity that exists among students with severe disabilities. The district, therefore, offers students instruction based on the abilities of different students. For instance, the district has self-contained classrooms meant for a student with severe disabilities.

Students spend most of their time in school in these classrooms to improve their skills. This measure makes it possible to segregate students according to their skill level to concentrate on the range of skills they can learn.

Secondly, the district offers resource instruction to students in special schools. Resource instruction refers to the exposure of students to higher-level materials suited to specific learning capabilities. In this case, a student who has greater potential in certain areas receive instruction to develop their potential.

The third aspect of the instructional model used in the Sky View is that it gives parents and guardians a wide range of options regarding the choice of facilities for their children. The district has programs that allow for continual instruction for students who lose skills during breaks. Also, the district gives parents the option of full-time residency of their special children in faculties that offer full-time care.

The main problem associated with the management of the curriculum for special needs education in Sky View Elementary School District is the isolation of special children from normal children. There are very few points of contact between students in the special units and children in ordinary classrooms.

This can lead to maladjustment to society when students with severe disabilities leave the institution. At the same time, the students do not benefit from the opportunity to learn how to communicate and to socialize with unimpaired persons. This is one of the most important skills needed by severely impaired persons.

References

AAIDD. (2013).Definition of Intellectual Disability.

Dodd, S. (2005). Understanding Autism. New South Wales: Elsevier.

Downing, J. E., & MacFarland, S. (2008). Severe Disabilities (Education and Individuals with Severe Disabilities: Promising Practices). International Encyclopeadia of rehabilitation , 114-118.

Glenn, R. (2007). Bringing User Experience to Healthcare Improvement: The Concepts, Methods and Practices of Experience-based Design. Oxon: Radcliffe Publishing.

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Educating Special Needs Students

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