https://www.specialeducationguide.

com/pre-k-12/what-is-special-education/

A Brief History
Before you can really begin to understand Special Education, you need to understand
its history. Quite simply, it all began with the parents.

Remember that scene in Forrest Gump when Sally Field’s character sat in the
principal’s office of her local public school and learned that her child would not be
allowed to attend school with other students? The principal told her that Forrest’s IQ
was too low for the state standard. You can see the look of determination cross Mrs.
Gump’s face, and you know she will not be taking “no” for an answer. Although you may
not realize it, this scene is actually a fairly accurate portrayal of what parents of students
with disabilities faced prior to the mid-1970s. It was parents such as Ms. Field’s
character—people who did not accept that their children deserved sub-par educations in
separate schools—who took on the school districts. These brave parents sued for, and
finally won, the right to send their children to public schools.

Although we now take it for granted that students with disabilities are allowed to attend
public schools, it was only in 1975 that it became law. The Education of all Handicapped
Children Act of 1975 was the first legislation to protect the educational rights of students
with disabilities. This law was later amended to become the Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act (IDEA), which is how we know it today. Although the law’s name changed
and new provisions have since been added, its overall purpose remains the same; IDEA
guarantees educational rights to all students with disabilities and makes it illegal for
school districts to refuse to educate a student based on a student’s disability.

How Does IDEA Define “Disability”?

Under IDEA, there are 14 categories under which a student is eligible to receive the
protections and services promised in the law. They are:

1. Autism
2. Deaf-Blindness
3. Deafness
4. Emotional Disturbance
5. Hearing Impairment
6. Intellectual Disability*
7. Orthopedic Impairment
8. Specific Learning Disability
9. Speech or Language Impairment
10. Traumatic Brain Injury
11. Visual Impairment
 12. Multiple Disabilities
13. Other Health Impairments

* Intellectual disability has also been referred to as “Mental Retardation” (MR) in the

past, and this term and its acronym may be used colloquially or in older documentation.
It is not, however, a currently accepted practice to refer to individuals with intellectual
disabilities as mentally retarded.

The Special Education Process: What to

Expect if Your Child Has a Disability
In the beginning, it may seem like there are endless special education acronyms,
requirements and tests; however, if you can learn the basic acronyms and understand
their meanings, you will find that you will begin to “speak SPED.” SPED, of course,
stands for “special education,” and you just learned your first and most important
acronym.

In the article titled The Special Education Process Explained, it provides an outline of

what to expect through the identification and assessment processes, in IEP meetings
and during IEP monitoring. It will define and briefly describe many of the acronyms you
will begin to hear, and give you a broad understanding of how the special education
process works. It also includes resources that you can use to find more in-depth
information about topics within special education.

Know Your Child’s Rights

If you are a newcomer to the world of special education, you may not be aware that you
have rights guaranteed to you under the law. No matter your role—parent, teacher,
student or administrator—it is important that you understand the laws governing special
education so that you can best advocate for your needs, or for the needs of the student.

Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), students with special
needs are entitled to “free and appropriate public education” (FAPE) in the “least
restrictive environment” (LRE). This means that your child’s school district must work
with you to provide your child with a public education that is as close as possible to the
education received by students without disabilities. For more information regarding your
child’s rights, and your rights as a parent, please refer to Legal Rights to Services.
 https://www.britannica.com/topic/special-education

Special education
WRITTEN BY: 

 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica

See Article History

Alternative Title: special needs education

Special education, also called special needs education,

the education of children who differ socially, mentally, or physically from the
average to such an extent that they require modifications of usual school
practices. Special education serves children with emotional, behavioral,
or cognitive impairments or with intellectual, hearing, vision, speech, or
learning disabilities; gifted children with advanced academic abilities; and
children with orthopedic or neurological impairments. See
also deafness; blindness; speech disorder; mental disorder; gifted
child; childhood disease and disorder; learning disabilities.
Historical Background
Although there are isolated examples of caring for and treating disabled
individuals in ancient Greece and Rome, early societies typically shunned
people who differed from the norm. During the Middle Ages the church
became the first institution to provide care for physically or mentally impaired
people, but the development of techniques associated with special education
did not emerge until the Renaissance, with its emphasis on human dignity. In
the mid-1500s Pedro Ponce de León succeeded in teaching deaf pupils in
Spain to speak, read, and write; it is assumed that his methods were followed
by Juan Pablo Bonet, who in 1620 published the first book on the subject.
This gave rise to a wider European interest in the education
of deaf individuals. In 17th-century England John Bulwer published an
account of his experiences teaching deaf persons to speak and lip-read, and
in France similar work was carried on by Charles-Michel, abbé de
l’Epée (1712–89), who changed the nature of communication for deaf and
hard-of-hearing individuals by developing the natural sign language they used
into a systematic and conventional language for more universal use. His work
was developed by Roch-Ambroise Cucurron, Abbé Sicard, and gave rise to
the manual system, or silent method, of teaching people with hearing
impairments. In Germany Samuel Heinicke experimented with training deaf
children to speak, and in the 19th century Friedrich Moritz Hill (1805–74), a
leading educator of the deaf, developed this method in relation to the concept
that education must relate to the “here and now” of the child—known as the
“natural method.” Thus arose the oral method of instruction that in time
became an accepted practice throughout the world.
No serious attempt was made to educate or to train persons with visual
impairments, however, until the late 18th century. Valentin Haüy, known as
the “father and apostle of the blind,” opened the National Institution of Blind
Youth (Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles) in Paris in 1784, with 12
blind children as his first pupils. News of Haüy’s success in teaching these
children to read soon spread to other countries. Subsequently, schools for the
blind were opened in Liverpool, England (1791), London (1799), Vienna
(1804), Berlin (1806), Amsterdam and Stockholm (1808), Zürich, Switzerland
(1809), Boston (1829), and New York City (1831).
Scientific attempts to educate children with intellectual disabilities originated in
the efforts of Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, a French physician and otologist. In
his classic book The Wild Boy of Aveyron (1807), he related his five-year
effort to train and educate a boy who had been found running wild in the
woods of Aveyron. Itard’s work with the boy became notable for the
possibilities it raised regarding the education of persons with mental or
emotional disabilities. Years later his student Edouard Séguin, who emigrated
from France to the United States in 1848, devised an educational method that
used physical and sensory activities to develop the mental processes.
Séguin’s published works influenced Maria Montessori, an Italian pediatrician
who became an educator and the innovator of a unique method of training
young mentally retarded and culturally deprived children in Rome in the 1890s
and early 1900s. Her approach emphasized self-education through specially
designed “didactic materials” for sensorimotor training; development of the
senses was the keynote of the system.
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Special education for people with disabilities became universal in developed

countries by the late 20th century. Concurrent with this development was the
identification of two concepts of individual differences: (1) “interindividual
differences,” which compares one child with another, and (2) “intraindividual
differences,” which compares the child’s abilities in one area with the child’s
abilities in other areas. The grouping of children in special classes rests on the
concept of interindividual differences, but the instructional procedures for each
child are determined by intraindividual differences—that is, by a child’s
abilities and disabilities.
Implementation Of Programs
Diagnostic patterns

Children with a particular kind of disability do not necessarily form

a homogeneous group, so diagnosis must go beyond merely classifying the
children according to their major deviation. A child with cerebral palsy, for
example, has a motor handicap but may also be of superior intelligence or
have a learning disability. Hence children with certain labels of impairment—
cerebral palsy or deafness or blindness, for example—must be carefully
assessed before they can be properly placed in a particular group.
For the gifted and the mentally retarded, the primary criterion of identification
is an individually administered intelligence (IQ) test. Children who score
particularly high (IQ scores higher than 130 indicate giftedness) or low (scores
below 70 indicate intellectual disability) are considered for special programs.
The determination is made by psychologists who in most cases certify a
child’s eligibility for such programs. In making these assessments,
psychologists also consider other criteria such as school achievement,
personality, and the adjustment of the child in the regular grades.
Medical specialists evaluate the needs of children who have sensory,
neurological, or orthopedic disabilities. Children who have learning
disabilities are assessed primarily by psychoeducational diagnosticians who,
through educational and psychological diagnostic tests, determine a child’s
potential for learning and achievement. Ancillary diagnoses by medical,
psychological, and other personnel also help determine a child’s eligibility for
special programs. Children with behavioral and emotional disabilities might be
evaluated by any number of specialists, including psychiatrists, clinical
psychologists, social workers, and teachers.
Patterns of instructional adaptation

The goals of special education are similar to the educational goals for ordinary
children; only the techniques for attaining them are different. An effort is
made, for example, to teach all children with special needs (except those
unable to profit at all from school experience) to read. Children who have
learning and mental disabilities require prolonged periods of intensive and
more-individualized instruction; for them the learning process might include
techniques to maintain interest, more active participation, and much more
repetition of similar material in varied form. Children with severe sensory
handicaps (such as deafness and blindness) must learn to read through other
sense modalities. Deaf individuals learn to read through visual methods, while
blind individuals learn to read Braille through the tactile sense.
Children who have motor handicaps require few, if any, academic
adjustments. Unless they have additional problems such as learning
disabilities, intellectual disabilities, or speech disorders (which are often found
among the cerebral palsied), children with motor disabilities learn like other
children, and they can follow the same classroom materials. Special
techniques are necessary, however, to help such children adapt to
their environment and to adapt the environment to their disability.
Wheelchairs, modified desks, and other apparatuses aid in mobility and the
manipulation of classroom materials. One of the most important aspects of the
education of the orthopedically disabled is attitudinal—that is, preparing
children for adapting to the world outside the classroom and maximizing their
potential for leading relatively normal lives.
Children with learning disabilities and those with speech defects require highly
specialized techniques, usually on an individual basis. For children with social
and emotional problems, special therapeutic and clinical services may be
provided. Psychotherapy and behaviour therapy by clinical psychologists,
social workers, and psychiatrists are generally a part of the educational
program. Academic teachers in these classes stress personality development,
social adjustment, and habits of interpersonal relations. With this group of
children, these factors are prerequisite to academic achievement. Academic
work is, however, sometimes therapeutic in itself and is promoted as much as
possible.
Grouping patterns

Special classes for children who have above-average intelligence, who have
intellectual disabilities, who have visual or hearing impairments, or who have
been diagnosed with other disabilities are found in many school systems
throughout the world. This type of organization allows children to attend
neighbourhood schools that offer specialized instruction, such
as remedial classes for students who need extra help. By contrast, “residential
schools” enroll special-needs children for 24 hours a day and are usually
attended by those who cannot obtain services in their community. For gifted
students, specialized programs offered by neighbourhood schools include
advanced classes that differ from the regular curriculum (an approach known
as enrichment) and grade-level advancement linked to educational
achievement (an approach known as acceleration).
Increasing criticism of programs that segregate children with special needs
has stirred efforts to integrate the special-needs child with other children. The
World Conference on Special Needs Education: Access and Quality, held in
1994 in Salamanca, Spain, endorsed inclusive schooling on a worldwide
basis. As a result of this conference, UNESCO was charged with promoting
special education concerns among teachers, documenting progress in various
regions and among different programs, and encouraging research in special-
needs education. For the gifted, special programs of enrichment and
acceleration are increasingly preferred to special classes. Resource rooms for
those with sight or hearing impairments allow children to participate in regular
classroom activities for part of the day. Older, educable persons with
intellectual disabilities can be assigned to regular workshops, physical
education classes, and other nonacademic classes. The eventual goal
(beyond developing skills and imparting information) is to prepare these
students for life in the larger society.

Inclusion
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/what-inclusion-how-do-we-implement-it

here are special departments in many educational institutions, especially in the public
sector, which focus just on how to create and maintain inclusive work environments.

So what is inclusion and why is it important? It is not just about including learners with
Specific Learning Differences (SpLDs). Inclusion is a basic right of everyone and its
objective should be to embrace everyone regardless of race, age, gender, disability,
religious and cultural beliefs and sexual orientation. When we have true inclusion, it is
when we have removed all barriers, discrimination and intolerance. When implemented
properly, it should make everyone feel included and supported, whichever environment
they are in.

What does inclusive practices mean, and how can we ensure that all our
classrooms and work environments are truly inclusive?

Inclusion is about how we structure our schools, our classrooms and our lessons so that
all our students learn and participate together. An inclusive classroom is one that
creates a supportive environment for all learners, including those with learning
differences, and can also challenge and engage gifted and talented learners by building
a more responsive learning environment.
Inclusivity also means respecting people from all backgrounds and cultures, and by
teaching our students the importance of this we create a much more tolerant and
understanding environment, not just in the classroom and school but also in wider
society.

An inclusive school or classroom can only be successful when all students feel that they
are truly part of the school community. This can only happen through open, honest
discussion about differences and understanding and respecting people from all abilities
and backgrounds. An inclusive environment is one where everyone feels valued.

Here’s how you can help promote inclusivity in your classrooms:

Think about your own values and approach to disability, gender, race, etc. Does how
you teach acknowledge the experiences of the students from different backgrounds? Is
your approach non-stereotypical? Using stereotypes can alienate and marginalise
people, and using generalisations can have a negative effect on learners. Do you
encourage alternative perspectives, debate ideas, create an environment which is open
to representation of different viewpoints?

Are your students treated as individuals, encouraged to share their own lives and
interests? Building a good rapport with your students helps with this. If your students
feel comfortable and supported by you, then they will be more open to sharing their
ideas, thoughts and interests with you and the other students. This can be achieved
quite easily. On the first day of class, share some information about yourself with your
students. Tell them what your interests are, why you like teaching, etc. Another activity
you could do in the first lesson is to write five words on the board about yourself. Tell
your students that they have to ask you questions to find out what the words are the
answers to. Then get the students to do the same activity for themselves in groups.

In an ELT racially diverse classroom, have you thought about your own conscious or
unconscious biases about people from other cultures? Do you have different
expectations of students of colour than you do of white students, of male or female
student, of students from the LGBTQ community?

Create a supportive, respectful environment: promote diversity and equity.

‘Classroom climate is affected not only by blatant instances of inequality directed

towards a person or group of people, but also by smaller, more subtle "micro-
inequities" that can accumulate to have significant negative impacts on learning’ (Hall,
1982).

This can be created by thinking about a couple of things: Think about how you deal
with student–student interaction. The way you deal with negative interaction is very
important.

Also think about the interaction between teacher and student. Are you an approachable
teacher? ‘Students who felt that their teacher was approachable, had concern for
minority student issues and treated students as individuals and with respect reported a
better course climate’ (Astin, 1993). If you establish some ground rules about
acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, this will help students understand more clearly
both your and other students’ expectations. You can do this at the beginning of each
 course and involve your students in putting together what everyone feels is acceptable
and unacceptable. It is always a good idea to revisit this from time to time as a
reminder to everyone.

Have high expectations of all your students. Research shows that students respond
better when they feel that their teacher has faith in their abilities and is not focusing on
their inabilities.

Plan learning which includes participation from everyone and encourages success. You
can do this by creating an environment which is personalised to the students’ needs
and talking about learning that focuses on what students can do and what they would
like to do next. This can be done through tutorials, individual learning plans (ILPs) and
short- and long-term goal-setting by the learner so that they feel they have ownership
of their learning. If you provide students with opportunities to tell you what is working
and what needs attention, you will have a better idea of what to focus on.

Take a ‘community’ approach to learning and teaching. Inclusive values are developed
through a student’s lived experiences and their exposure to other cultures and world-
views. Bring your community into the classroom and take your classroom out to the
community.

And a final thought on why inclusion is important:

‘Even though some of us might wish to conceptualize our classrooms as culturally

neutral or might choose to ignore the cultural dimensions, students cannot check their
sociocultural identities at the door, nor can they instantly transcend their current level
of development … Therefore, it is important that the pedagogical strategies we employ
in the classroom reflect an understanding of social identity development so that we can
anticipate the tensions that might occur in the classroom and be proactive about them’
(Ambrose et. al., 2010, p. 169–170).

Creating an inclusive environment will not only help those students with learning
differences, it will also support those students who don’t have a learning difference by
making them more aware, tolerant and understanding of each other.

References:

 Hall, S. (1982). The classroom climate: A chilly one for women? Washington
D.C.: Association of American Colleges.
 Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M.W., DiPietro, M. & Lovett, M.C. (2010). How learning
works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey
Bass.
 Astin, A. W., (1993). What matters in college: Four critical years revisited. San
Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass.
History
http://neiuelcentro.tripod.com/id10.html

The history of Special Education begins with the

th
18  century. Before that time, persons with disabilities were not
taken in consideration, and were often mistaken as being
possessed by evil powers, cursed, or simply stupid (Blackhurst
13, 14). With the beginning of the 18th century, and also of the
period known as the Enlightenment, ideas about education started
to arise.
            The Enlightenment period influenced Special Education is
many ways. To start, Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
publishes his Emile, a book about the education of children.
According to Rousseau, learning should happen in agreement with
a child’s cognitive speed, with minimal outer stimuli from society,
which is known for praising social roles, and wealth. This idea of
teaching children in their own pace set the ground for many
educators (Johnston).
Charles Michel L’Epeé was one of the pioneers in the
18th century in what concerns the education of the disabled. In
1760 he founded the first public school for people with disabilities
in France. He was concerned with language and phonetics being
taught in a different way as a tool for the education of deaf and
blind students. Following L’Epeé’s path, Valentin Haüy founded
the “Institution Nationale des Jeunes Aveugles” in 1784, which is
recognized as the first school in the world for the education of
blind people. Haüy was inspired by many people: Rousseau,
L’Epeé, and Madame Von Paradis, who was blind, and helped him
develop the methods used in the school. Using these methods,
Haüy was able to educate a blind boy who later became a teacher
in the same school (Safford 38-46). Another person who was also
concerned with the education of people with special needs, Jean
Marc Gaspard Itard was concerned with different methods in
order to educate disabled children. He tried to educate a boy, who
was found in the wild, for about five years. With no actual
improvements, Itard gave up on the attempt and let the boy go
back to his wild life. Still, his researches and efforts were of great
influence on the works of special educators, especially in
the United States.
On the 19th century special education became more
palpable, with efforts from people such as Rev. Thomas Gallaudet,
and Samuel Howe in taking action on the matter of special
education. In Hartford, Connecticut, Rev. Thomas Gallaudet
implemented the first school for the deaf in 1817. The school was
called American Asylum for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb,
and it is nowadays the American School for the Deaf. Another
person of equal importance in the history of special education is
Samuel Gridley Howe. Howe was interested in the education of
blind students, and in 1829 founded the first school for blind
children in the United States. The school nowadays is called
the Perkins School for the blind, and it is located
in Massachusetts. Howe also was the founder of
the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feebleminded children in
1848. Following the example of these two people, other states
started opening institutions that aim to educate disabled children.
In 1851 a school opened in Albany; in 1853
the Pennsylvania Training School fro Feebleminded Children
opened as well; in 1857, Ohio State opened the Institution of the
Feebleminded Youth; and in 1858 the first school for retarded
children was open in Connecticut (Kanner 63, 64). With special
education becoming more important through the years, in 1876
the Association of Medical Officers of American Institutions for
Idiotic and Feebleminded Persons was found, and in 1878 two
more special education classes opened in Cleveland.
Changes were made also in what concerns the law of
implementing special education in schools. In 1890 it was the
states’ responsibility to provide institutions for the special
children, and in 1897 the Department of Special Education was
created by the National Education Association.
The 20th century is characterized by the implementation of
laws to assure that people with disabilities would have their rights
to education guaranteed. In 1906, the New
York University included in the courses offered by the school a
training program for special education teachers. In 1908 the
French researcher Alfred Binet, along with Theodore Simon,
created the intelligence scale: a standardized intelligence test in
order to identify mentally retarded children. Later on, the test
would be applied to the American standards, and the idea of
Intelligence Quotient was introduced in 1916 by Lewis Terman,
renaming the test from Simon-Binet scale to Stanford-Binet scale.
Continuing the wave of implementations, in 1918 all states
recognized that all citizens have the right to education, and in
1922 the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) was founded by
Elizabeth Farrell. This Council plays an important role in providing
laws to protect those with disabilities. In 1931 the United States
Office of Education established a section on the exceptional
children, and in 1936 blind persons are included in the Social
Security Act of 1935. Despite some efforts, the attention from
special educational issues was shifted to other concerns such as
the Great Depression and the Second World War. However, in the
1950s the number of changes made in the governmental area
was significant (Winzer 373-375). To start, in 1950 the National
Association for Retarded Children (NARC) was founded by parents
of children with mental disabilities. This association ignited the
idea of public law 94-142, by asking that every mentally retarded
child has the right to education, and that such would occur
depending on each person’s needs. In 1954, in the case of Brown
vs. Board of Education, it was stated by the supreme court of
the United States that all children have the right to education in
equal terms. Finally, in 1958, President Eisenhower signed public
law 85-926, which provided grants to colleges and universities to
make sure that courses would be offered to prepare teachers for
special education. After this, a snowball effect ran through the
sixties and seventies. 
In 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was
passed, and it provided funds for schools in order to have a
proper environment for children with disabilities. In 1966 it was
the turn of the Education of Handicapped Act, which was passed
in order to grant funds to schools to train teachers, but also
required a Bureau of Education for the Handicapped in the Office
of Education.
In the early seventies two important cases started a
revolution in Special Education: the case of the Pennsylvania
Association for Retarded Children
vs. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1971, and in 1972 the case
of Mills vs. District of Columbia Board of Education. The first case
fought for the right of children with disabilities to a free and
appropriate public education, and the second served to reinforce
the ideas of the previous. Both cases though required that
children and their families had the right to a procedural due
process when it comes to protecting the rights of those with
disabilities. After these two cases, thirty six other cases followed
(Ballard 2, 3).
The ideas to protect children with disabilities, and to
guaranteed education for such were becoming overwhelming, and
it was coming time to put all those small accounts in one effective
law. In 1973, the Rehabilitation Act was passed and assured the
rights of people with disabilities in respect to a non-discriminative
environment in education, employment, and housing. It is
though, in 1975 that the sum of all small acts towards the
education of handicapped children emerged in one law: Public Law
94-142. This law guarantees that people with disabilities have the
right to free and appropriate public education, in a least
restrictive environment; also, it required that each individual had
his or her own educational plan (IEP), and that all people with
disabilities had the right to a fair due process.
In 1990 after being revised, Public Law 94-142 became
known as IDEA, Individual with Disabilities Education Act, and has
been revised again in 1997. Also in 1990, the American with
Disabilities Act was passed guaranteeing that implementation
would be made to people with disabilities in the work
environment, as well as in public transportation, and
telecommunications.

Rousseau's Emile (1762)

History of Special Education in the 20th century

References
 

Ballard, J., Ramirez, B. A., & Weintraub, F. J. Special Education

in America: Its Legal and Governmental Foundations  Reston, VA: The
Council for Exceptional Children 1982.

Blackhurst, A. E. & Berdine, W. H. An Introduction to Special

Education (3rd ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins College Publishers
1993.

Johnston, I. Introduction to Rousseau's Emile October, 1999 Malaspino

University-College, Nanaimo. Oct. 22 2005
<http://www.mala.bc.ca/~johnstoi/introser/rousseau.htm>

Kanner, L. A History of the Care and Study of the Mentally

Retarded Springfield, Illinois CCThomas, 1964.

Safford, P. A History of Childhood and Disability New York Teacher's

College Press, 1996.

Winzer, M. The History of Special Education: from Isolation to

Integration Washington DC Gallaudet University Press, 1993.

http://www.ibe.unesco.org/sites/default/files/History_Inclusive_Education.pdf

https://www.alleducationschools.com/blog/history-of-special-education/

https://prezi.com/g6otunbtjgx-/history-of-special-education-in-the-philippines/