Abstract
The academic terms and the periods of the courses related to the language development and communication differs considerably in the programs of the countries which train teachers for the special education department. The aim of this study is to examine the contents and credits of the communication and the language development courses in Teacher Education Programs for hearing-impaired, intellectual disability, gifted and talented multiple disabilities, visual impairment education at the special education department. In this study in which the descriptive research method is used, the data have been collected from the sources of Turkey and European Union member countries, called Agencies of the European Union, Eurydice-Network on Education Systems and Policies in Europe. The courses in Special Education Teacher Training undergraduate programs of higher education institutions of each country stated in the reports of National Education System Descriptions have been examined to reach these data. While there are undergraduate programs for four years of study related to each disability type in Turkey, it has been seen that the department of hearing impaired education teacher training is the department which mainly includes the language development and communication skills courses among mentioned programs. The countries such as Luxemburg, Sweden, Greece, Belgium, Ireland, Finland Ireland and Lithuania give common ground courses of special education department to the preservice teachers in 6 to 7 academic terms.
 
 Keywords: Special education, teacher training program, communication and language development education
Highlights
The individual who needs special education and has been diagnosed with disability depending on these needs shows statistically significant differences from the expected level in terms of individual and developmental characteristics, educational performances (MEB [Ministry of National Education], 2015, European Agency- EC, 2016)
This study is to examine contents and credits of the communication courses and the language development in Teacher Education Programs for hearing-impaired, intellectual disability, gifted and talented, multiple disabilities, visual impairment education at the special education department
It is highly significant that the courses for language development, communication and speech disorders, and the courses for supporting language development in early childhood which are included in the program are examined in terms of duration and content to state how the teachers get the special field competence for supporting language- speech development and communication, which are important for the education of children with special educational needs
Summary
The individual who needs special education and has been diagnosed with disability depending on these needs shows statistically significant differences from the expected level in terms of individual and developmental characteristics, educational performances (MEB [Ministry of National Education], 2015, European Agency- EC, 2016). The policies which are based on the needs and which enable the integration of the individual into the society are needed to increase the quality of the special education services (Sucuoglu & Kargın, 2006). In this sense, it is necessary to examine the individualist and social policies. Social policies see the function restriction as the base of the needs of the individual and emphasize that this function restriction results from inappropriate regulations These policies link the inappropriate regulations with the family and education environments. It is aimed to develop the professional knowledge and skills of the teachers that will be assigned at the highest level during the undergraduate study (Cook & Friend, 2010; Kayhan, 2016)
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