Working With Children With Special Needs Summary

In Chapter 7 Working with Children with Special Needs by Jeanne Machado and Helen Botnarescue provides a brief overview of Children with disability. The chapter provide context, about laws relations and implications to the education of special needs, what special education is—its characteristics, who receives it, its purpose and goal, importance of inclusion to the general education classroom and curriculum and effects of student teaching with special needs.

Per the chapter, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142), provides guidance to states, allowing students with disabilities to access public education and providing financial assistance to states as supplemental funding for special education and related services. Passed in 1975, PL 94-142 mandated that to receive federal funding for special education, states had to comply with the law. The outcome of PL 94-142, now referred to as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) which primary goals are to protect the rights of children with disabilities ensuring students with disabilities have access to free and appropriate public education just like all other children. Schools are required to provide special education in the least restrictive environment, meaning

Not every child with learning and attention issues is eligible for special education services under IDEA. First, a child must be found to have one of the thirteen kinds of disabilities that IDEA covers: Autism, Deaf-blindness, Deafness, Emotional disturbance, Hearing impairment, Intellectual disability, Multiple disabilities, Orthopedic impairment, Other health impairment (including ADHD), Specific learning disability (including dyslexia, dyscalculia and dysgraphia, among other), Speech or language impairment, Traumatic brain injury and Visual impairment, including