Understanding Special Education Needs

Aug 21, 2017 Letters

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Dear Editor,
As Guyana make significant strides in the area of Special Education and meeting the needs of learners with Special Education Needs and/or Disabilities, we need to understand the reality that exists. Special Education was delineated to be a sub-system of conventional education to give learners with Special Education Needs and/or disabilities equal access to learning opportunities and educational experiences as their counterparts in conventional education. There are multiple definitions of Special Education which are very recent and current. However, this definition is more applicable since it directly reflects the organization of educational experiences and learning opportunities in Guyana.
A Special Education Need (SEN) on the other hand is any exceptionality a learner possesses which make conventional education lack the programmes, structure, support and systems the learner needs to achieve educational outcomes and personal learning goals. In simpler explanation is that a Special Education Need (SEN) is more than goes beyond just having an individual deficit or disability which makes learning more challenging. It encompasses the gifted learners whose needs are above or beyond those learning experiences and educational opportunities provided in conventional mainstream education.
This giftedness ranges from the extremely brilliant, artistic and even intuitive. One should understand that there are two extremities to balance when one tries to comprehend a Special Education Need (SEN). A learner may a single disability and/ or a single Special Education Need (SEN). This is in simplicity. However, a learner may have multiple disabilities and/ or a single Special Education Needs (SEN). A learner may also be facing a challenge in learning a concept which also constitutes Special Education Needs (SEN). The challenge may be: cultural, language, background, emotional, the teacher, the learning materials, instructions given, and learning environment among others. Key to not here as well is that the challenge can be internal for the learner or external acting upon the learner.
Let us explore a disability in two contexts. Firstly, a disability can be perceived as a cognitive, physical or emotional impairment that create a limitation for the experiences and opportunities a learner can access in the traditional mainstream education system. However, on the other hand, a disability is the discrimination suffered, loss of learning experiences and educational opportunities learners suffer in a society and/or an educational institution due to society’s unequal access and limitations created by an individual’s impairment. Society’s structures and systems are not accommodating and obstruct access to full involvement in social and educational activities.
Further, Mainstream Education is the traditional education systems that provide learning experiences and education opportunities/access for the general student population. This may occur in regular classes, in the lunch room, in hallways, in particular subjects, in school assemblies, and in extracurricular activities. The mainstream school is your typical public education system with the standard facilities, resources, teachers and curriculum. It must be clear that the current systems and structures in conventional mainstream education without reorganization, and restructuring and making reasonable adjustments will make the system challenging for a learner on either end of the line of a is Special Education Needs (SEN) or one who has a disabilities.
As one attempts to get a clear understanding of Special Education Needs (SEN) and disabilities it must be at the fore front of one’s mind that all learners deserve to have all their educational needs met.
According to Grima-Farrell, Bain and McDonagh (2011, p. 118), “Inclusive education represents a whole-school concern and works to align special education with general education in a manner that most effectively and efficiently imparts quality education to all students”. On the other hand, integration is the process by which learners with Special Education Needs (SEN) and disabilities are included in mainstream schools on a release from alternate segregated programs for short or long periods, depending on their capacities. Their progress is determined by their individual strengths and needs (Forlin, 2012).
Inclusion is connected to a serious commitment and culpability to responsibility to the approach at restructuring mainstream general educational institutions to make them children friendly and caters for the diversity of learners within the catchment area of the institution. It is the comprehensively accepting that learners with Special Education Needs (SEN) and/or disability still face multiple forms of discrimination and exclusion which fluctuate depending on the severity of the disability, residence and the culture or class to which they belong (UNICEF, 2013).
Whether integration or inclusion, all children must be afforded the opportunity to attend their neighbourhood school. Mainstream schools must be learner friendly to all learners. These schools and districts must facilitate a ‘zero-rejection’ policy when it comes to registering and teaching children in their region. The curriculum must be flexible and adaptable to cater for all learners. The environment must be structured to accommodate all learners.
All children are welcomed and valued. The interpretation of all must be taken to be each and every learner, those with a disability, a Special Education Need or neither of those. All learners must have their presence appreciated and their contribution to the discourse in the creation of knowledge to be valued. This will contribute to all learners having a good self-esteem. Using Wolfensberger (1995b) postulation of Social Role Valorization can be used to create a sense of worth in society for learners with Special Education Needs and disabilities. This will create the desire in society to change the value society place on these learners.
Inclusion will facilitate the atmosphere where teachers’ modes of instruction are varied and responsive to the needs of all. This will allow individual learners to have their needs met. No longer will one mode be given to all nor will learner be integrated in a mainstream setting and be expected to cope. While there is differentiation of instruction, all children follow substantively similar programs of study, with curriculum that can be adapted and modified if needed. This will be most effective in an inclusive setting and is superb when compared to integration.
Inclusion will allow all children to contribute to regular school and classroom learning activities and events in a meaningful and consistent way which cannot be facilitated by integration. Under inclusion, all children are supported to make friends and to be socially successful with their peers. If they are only there in fragments as postulated by integration theorist learners cannot be fully supported to make friends and to be socially successful with their peers.
Lidon Lashley, B.Ed., M.Ed., M.A.

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