To begin my research I put myself in the shoes of parents with special needs children. I have two beautiful healthy daughters and to think about being pregnant and expecting to deliver your bundle of joy and when she arrives you find out something is wrong. You can look at her and tell she is different, but you just do not want to accept it. It saddens me to think how any parent would feel in this situation. In my research about the historical evolution of special education I found most special needs children were sent a way. Doctors would tell the parents of these children there was nothing that could done and the best thing for them would be to institutionalize them. It was not until mid-1970’s this would change. In 1975 as a result of litigation Congress passed Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142). (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 2004) According to The inclusive classroom strategies for effective instruction and several articles I read there were over one million children with disabilities who were excluded from public schools prior to the law being enacted. This law was amended in 1997 and is now called Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Before this law was passed it prevented many students with special needs from attending public school and the opportunity to learn. This law “guaranteed a free, appropriate public education (FAPA) to each child with a disability in every state and locality across the country.” (Masteropieri & Scruggs, 2004) It is written by the US Department of Education there are four purposes to this law. "to assure that all children with disabilities have available to them…a free appropriate public education which emphasizes special education and relat... ... middle of paper ... ...is on going and will continue to change as challenges arise and need to be meet. I see in my school today changes that have taken place and how we are working together as a team to make it better for both the disabled as well as the abled. “Project Unify” in our school has been a great success and the special needs students as well as the general classroom students are growing in social skills to help them be better adults. Works Cited Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (2004). The inclusive classroom strategies for effective in struction. (2nd ed., p. 4). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Merrill. Sailor, W., & Blair, R. (2005). Rethinking inclusion: Schoolwide applications. Children And Youth - For, Education, College And Alumni, 86(7), 6. U.s. department of education. (2007, July 19). Retrieved from http://www2.ed.gov/policy/speced/leg/idea/history.html
This means that children with all different types of a disability are accessible to public education and learning through professional educators and through their peers. Another important legislation that has been established in 1975 is the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that includes all ages of children and their rights to learn. Both of these movements helped shape what special education is today and assisted in bringing inclusion into the classroom. They both made it possible for students with disabilities to be integrated into general education classrooms, while getting the assistance they need as well.
Educators must understand and respect the legal rights of students and their parents, which are protected by the U.S. Constitution/Fourteenth Amendment. The Individuals with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 protect students who have been identified with disabilities. According to both IDEA and Section 504, all special education students must be educated in the least restrictive environment. The two provisions also mandate that that all children with disabilities receive a free and appropriate public education, which is referred to as FAPE. This essay will answer the question, "what is FAPE and why is it so important in the education of all children, especially students with disabilities?"
Individuals with disabilities have laws in place to protect them and their rights as Americans. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act “requires public schools to make available to all eligible children with disabilities a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their individual needs” (Us department of education, 2011). Schools have resources available to help educators meet the needs of any individual with a disability.
These children were now being seen as a group in which society had obligations to provide “normalisation” (Bowe, 2007, p.45) and would lead to a revolutionary law being introduced in America. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was passed in 1975, of which Australia became a signatory. (AIHW, 2004). This Act mandated “that all school-age children with disabilities must receive a free appropriate public education” (Bowe, 2007, p. 101) “in the least restrictive environment” (Bowe, 2007, p. 5). For the first time in a century, Australia no longer segregated these children into an isolated “special facility” (Allen & Cowdery, 2012, p. 8). State governments established special education units within mainstream schools (AIHW, 2004). This is referred to as Integrated education and is described by Talay-Ongan & Cooke (2005), as an environment “where children with similar disabilities in special classes share the normal school environment, and utilise some classes (e.g., art or physical education) or the playground that all children enjoy.” In 1992, the Disability Discrimination Act was introduced in Australia which specifically covered the topic of Education and in 2005 a set of supplementary standards was passed which specifies the support schools are required to provide to students with a
Prior to 1975, educational options for a child living with a mental or physical disability were limited. The family of the handicapped child was most likely forced down an path that lead to the institutionalization of the child and distancing the child from the benefits of receiving a free and public education. It was after federal legislation passed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (42 U.S.C. § 1983) that monumental changes began to develop that allowed a better understanding of the needs and capabilities of people with various handicapping conditions. Soon after this legislation, Public Law 94-142, also known as the Education for all Handicapped Children’s Act of 1975 (EHA) would further increase the public awareness by providing a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for children suffering from disabilities. Following the EHA legislation reformations concerning the education of disabled individuals would soon become numerous and legislative acts were passed enabling accommodations for disabled individuals in the fields of vocations and technology. In 1990, President Gerald Ford signed legislation replacing P.L. 94-142 with the Individual with Disabilities Education Act of 1990 (IDEA, 20 USC 1400). By definition, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a law ensuring services to children with disabilities throughout the nation (US Department of Education, 2011).
Peterson, J. Michael and Hittie, Marie Michael. Inclusive Teaching : Creating Effective Schools for All Learners. Pearson Publishing. (2003)
“The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibit discrimination on the basis of race, religion, national origin, or gender, but people with disabilities were not included under such protection” (Department of Justice). It was not until 1973 when the Rehabilitation Act came to fruition that people were officially by law protected against discrimination on the basis of either mental or physical disability. The Architectural Barriers Act implemented in 1968 helped people with disabilities have access to buildings and facilities by companies, agencies complying with federal standards for physical accessibility. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act was renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). This Act allows people with disabilities into public schools and also requires the school to develop (IEP’s) Individualized Education Programs to be developed and fit individualized needs for the student. Another very important piece of legislation is the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) in which “prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability in employment, state and local government, public accommodations, commercial facilities, transportation and telecommunications services” (A Brief History, p.1).
Mastropieri, M. A., & Scruggs, T. E. (2007). The Inclusive Classroom: Strategies for Effective Instruction (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall/Merrill.
According to LD Online (2015), Public Law 94-142, also known as Education for all Handicapped Children Act (EHA), was passed in 1975. Since then, the law has taken on many changes in order to improve its effectiveness, and is now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA 04). The original Public Law 94-142 guaranteed a free and appropriate public education to each child with a disability from the age 3 to 21 (LD Online, 2015). It is required to make efforts towards improving how children with disabilities are identified and educated, as well as provide evaluations for the success of those efforts. Furthermore, the law provided due process protections
These strategies assist both teachers and students to attain an inclusive classroom
I have worked with many teachers in this line of work and have watched how they interact with the kids. I have worked with all kinds of kids with special needs, ranging from reading disabilities to severe mental retardation. Some of the teachers that I have worked with, I have not approved of their tactics on how they handled the kids, but you learn and you adapt. Eventually you will know what is right and what is wrong.
Some people may look at a person with special needs and see disabilities. Some may feel nothing but sympathy, while others, through the lack of knowledge, overlook these amazing individuals completely. I am one of the lucky ones that not only has experienced having a person of special needs in their life, but to also have the insight to realize the impact of the life lessons that my friend Jeff Geis has taught me. Jeff, born with Down’s syndrome, has overcome obstacles in his life that most of us cannot even imagine. Doctors told his parents to put him in an institution when he was a baby, stating that they would never be able to teach him to walk, feed himself or even live past adolescence – he would be too much of a burden. Today at the age of 21, Jeff is a High School graduate, he is taking courses at State University, working a part-time job at Valley YMCA and a part-time job at his father’s firm. Not only has Jeffy accomplished the things that the “professionals” said that he would never be able to do – he has achieved these things, and more. Persons with intellectual disabilities have qualities that I can only aspire to: among them are their strong mind, strength and determination, optimistic and positive attitude and above all, their kindness and acceptance.
November 13, 2013. “Increasing Options and Improving Provision for Children with Special Educational Needs. (SEN).” Gov. UK. Copyright 2018 Crown.
Inclusion in classrooms is defined as combining students with disabilities and students without disabilities together in an educational environment. It provides all students with a better sense of belonging. They will enable friendships and evolve feelings of being a member of a diverse community (Bronson, 1999). Inclusion benefits students without disabilities by developing a sense of helping others and respecting other diverse people. By this, the students will build up an appreciation that everyone has unique yet wonderful abilities and personalities (Bronson, 1999). This will enhance their communication skills later in life. Inclusive classrooms provide students with disabilities a better education on the same level as their peers. Since all students would be in the same educational environment, they would follow the same curriculum and not separate ones based on their disability. The main element to a successful inclusive classroom, is the teachers effort to plan the curriculum to fit all students needs. Teachers must make sure that they are making the material challenging enough for students without special needs and understandable to students with special needs. Inclusive classrooms are beneficial to students with and without special needs.
To begin with, full inclusion in the education system for people with disabilities should be the first of many steps that are needed to correct the social injustices that people with disabilities currently face. Students with disabilities are far too frequently isolated and separated in the education system (Johnson). They are often provided a diluted, inferior education and denied meaningful opportunities to learn. There are many education rights for children with disabilities to p...