Special Education

Special Education, specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs and abilities of disabled or gifted children. Disabled children have conditions that adversely affect their progress in conventional education programs. Gifted children, who demonstrate high capacity in intellectual, creative, or artistic areas, may also fare poorly in regular education programs. Special education services can help both disabled and gifted children make progress in education programs. Most children served by special education programs are between the ages of 6 and 17.

In the United States, federal law requires states to identify and serve all children with disabilities. Public education and health officials in the United States identified approximately 5.4 million infants, toddlers, children, and youth as disabled in 1994. That same year, the U.S. Department of Education reported that 12.2 percent of all children below the age of 21 received some form of special education. The most frequently reported disabilities are speech or language impairments; mental retardation and other developmental disorders; serious emotional disturbance; and specific learning disorders, such as memory disorders. Other disabilities include hearing, visual, or orthopedic impairments; autism; and traumatic brain injury. An increasing number of children in the United States are identified as having attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and receive special education services.

Many schools in the United States provide special education services for gifted children, although federal law does not mandate these services. Gifted children demonstrate exceptionally high abilities in intellectual, creative, academic, leadership, or artistic areas. Estimates of the gifted population in the United States range from 3 to 15 percent of all schoolchildren.

History

There have always been disabled and gifted children. However, special education programs are relatively new. Historically, people with disabilities were often placed in hospitals, asylums, or other institutions that provided little, if any, education. French physician and educator Jean Marc Gaspard Itard was one of the earliest teachers to argue that special teaching methods could be effective in educating disabled children. In 1801 Itard discovered a young boy roaming wild in the woods of France. Between 1801 and 1805 Itard used systematic techniques to teach the boy, named Victor, how to communicate with others and how to perform daily living skills, such as dressing himself. In 1848 French psychologist Edouard Séguin, who had studied with Itard, immigrated to the United States and developed several influential guidelines for educating children with special needs. Séguin’s education programs stressed the importance of developing independence and self-reliance in disabled students by presenting them with a combination of physical and intellectual tasks.

During the 18th and 19th centuries in the United States, educators opened a variety of special schools for disabled students. In 1816 American minister and educator Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet established the first public school for deaf students in the United States. The first school for blind students in the United States was founded in 1829 in Boston by American physician John Dix Fisher. The school is known today as Perkins School for the Blind and is located in Watertown, Massachusetts. Special education classes within regular school programs began at the beginning of the 20th century. Elizabeth Farrell, a teacher in one of these early classes in New York City, founded the Council for Exceptional Children in 1918. This organization remains the primary professional group for teachers and administrators in the field of special education.

Special education in the United States has been most influenced by parent and professional advocacy groups, federal laws, national trends in conventional education, and the civil rights movement (see Civil Rights Movement in the United States). Despite mandatory school attendance laws for all children, many U.S. schools excluded children with disabilities as recently as the 1960s. Since then, societal attitudes have changed, and federal laws now require schools to give children with disabilities full access to education programs.

Legislation

U.S. Legislation

In 1975 the Congress of the United States passed the Education of All Handicapped Children Act, a landmark statute in special education that has since undergone numerous amendments. A 1990 amendment renamed the law the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

IDEA requires public schools to offer a free and appropriate education to all disabled children. The law also requires that all children with disabilities between the ages of 3 and 21 receive support services, such as counseling or physical therapy, regardless of the type or severity of their disability. According to the provisions of IDEA, schools must identify all children with disabilities. To do this school officials provide each child thought or known to have a disability with a comprehensive evaluation conducted by teachers, the parents, and appropriate specialists, such as a speech clinician or orthopedist.

IDEA also requires schools to give parents the opportunity to assist in the development and revision of their child’s education plan. The plan specifies goals for the student’s education, methods to achieve those goals, and services to be provided. Each student’s education plan is reviewed annually. To the maximum extent appropriate, a child with a disability must be educated with children who do not have disabilities. In addition, IDEA requires that older children with disabilities receive transition services to assist in the change from school to adult activities, such as employment, continuing education, and finding a place to live. IDEA provides federal financial support for schools to develop special education programs.

Other federal laws prohibit discrimination based on disability. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 bars discrimination against individuals with disabilities in public schools and any other federally supported programs. The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ensures access for individuals with disabilities in all aspects of life, including education, the workplace, transportation, and telecommunications