Special Education System Research Articles

Primary Care Physicians’ Knowledge of and Confidence in Their Referrals for Special Education Services in 3- to 5-Year-Old Children

Children 3 to 5 years old with developmental delays are eligible for special education services. To assess primary care physicians' (PCPs) knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding their referrals to the special education system on behalf of children 3 to 5 years old. Mail survey of 400 office-based general pediatricians and 414 family physicians in Michigan, fielded in fall 2012 and winter 2013, with a response rate of 44%. The 4-page survey included knowledge questions about special education eligibility, PCPs' role in accessing school-based services, and self-confidence in ability to help patients access these services. PCPs neither fully understood requirements for special education services nor were they very confident in identifying 3- to 5-year-old children eligible for special education services. PCPs recognize interacting with special education as a relative weakness, and they may be accepting of interventions to improve their knowledge and skills.

‘It should be teamwork’: a critical investigation of school practices and parent advocacy in special education

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) suggests that parents are critical members of the special education system. Through conducting interviews with parents, observing individualised education plan (IEP) meetings, and analysing the discourse between the parent and the professional, this critical qualitative research investigates the parent–school relationship when parents are fighting for more inclusive placements for their children. This study uncovers the bureaucratic processes schools utilise, which do not allow for equitable parent participation in IEP processes including: medical and deficit discourse, professionalised discourse, policy interpretations, and meeting practices. We then describe strategies that parent-advocates use in order to obtain adequate services for their children including: networking, bringing an advocate, and education. We conclude with recommendations for schools and parents which promote enhanced parent–school collaboration throughout IEP planning, with an end goal towards improving educational opportunities for students with disabilities.

Lessons From Brazil: Separate and Unequal Educational Systems

In this article, the author shares the perspective of an inside informant who knows the Brazilian culture well. The author first describes Brazil as a country. Then, she discusses the Brazilian educational system and how special education fits into that system. Next, the author briefly discusses the Brazilian cultural context and barriers to successful inclusion of students with disabilities. The author concludes by offering thoughts about lessons that can be learned from the Brazilian inclusive special education system.

A Universally Designed for Learning (UDL) Infused Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) Practitioners' Model Essential for Teacher Preparation in the 21st Century

This article challenges educational computing researchers and teacher educators to consider a merger between universal design for learning and technological pedagogical content knowledge to create a practitioners' model to prepare teachers to graduate with the knowledge, skills, and dispositions needed to teach the full spectrum of learners. Presently, these models are being developed on parallel tracks because of the existing bifurcated system of general (regular) and special education. The two models together would create a cohesive, comprehensive, theoretical model for the preparation of 21st century teachers.

Coordination in Transition Planning: The IEP/IPE Interface

Effective planning for the transition of students with disabilities from school to adulthood requires coordination and collaboration among special education personnel, families, students, and adult service agency representatives. The state vocational rehabilitation agency is among the most important adult service entities that collaborate with schools for planning purposes. The special education and vocational rehabilitation systems, however, have different planning documents to guide service delivery. This article addresses the connection between the transition Individualized Education Program (IEP) and the Individualized Plan for Employment (IPE). The components of each planning document and how they should interfacefor students in transition are reviewed. In addition, the role of the Summary of Performance (SOP) document as a connection between the IEP and IPE is discussed. Finally, challenges to effective coordination between these planning documents are addressed.

Improving Parental Involvement

Given that most parents of students with disabilities have difficulty navigating the special education system, advocacy training offers one way to aid parents in securing appropriate educational services for their children with disabilities. Two distinct models of advocacy trainings are as follows: the Special Education Advocacy Training and the Volunteer Advocacy Project. This article notes how parents may need advocates to assert their special education rights and how advocates may be trained in special education law and advocacy. Furthermore, this article discusses the consequences of special education advocacy trainings for the disability field—universities and service providers alike. The conclusion of this article describes the need for additional research about family–school collaboration.

Early identification for special education: Implications for research and development in the Pacific Rim

Early identification and intervention for children with disabilities can significantly improve longer term outcomes, but in developing nations like many in the Pacific Rim, such programs and practices can be expensive and must compete against other needs. We argue that early identification and intervention by schools leads not only to life improvements for children with disabilities and their families but also to substantial additions to a nation's human capital. Therefore, national investment in special education and prevention systems that provide the earliest possible identification and effective interventions can not only offset the lifetime family and social costs of disabilities, but also can add importantly to general well-being. Moreover, new knowledge and technologies relevant to applied problems in early identification are rapidly emerging, potentially increasing the precision and lowering the costs involved. The bottleneck, however, is the inadequate supply of highly skilled professionals in the special and general education systems – from university doctoral training down to typical classroom teaching. Based on extant literature, we articulate some development principles to help developing education systems in choosing how they may best invest in early identification and intervention.

Stress Management Tools for Preventing Burnout Phenomenon at Teachers from Special Education

Literature has often discussed the relationship between teaching as profession and a high level of stress. Personal work style, maintaining discipline in the classroom, the need to adapt to changes in educational system, inadequate working conditions are only few determinants identified. Our study aims are to specify the relationship between defense/coping mechanisms in different conditions of stress developed by special education teachers and the burnout phenomenon. Scales for identifying the satisfaction at work, the level of stress, the defense mechanisms and the Maslach Burnout Inventory were used. We applied the mentioned instruments for a group of 120 teachers active within special education system.

Cognitive Load Persuade Attribute for Special Need Education System Using Data Mining

Human learning system is highly sensitive to responsive system according the processing, mapping, motion, auditory and visualization system. Special education system is implemented to overcome the demanded sense of the human special care sensitive signals. This responsive system is balanced and effectively instrumented with modern technological learning pedagogy to bring the special need learners into the normal learning system. In the learning process, cognitive human sensors directly influence the learning effectiveness. This paper attempted to observe the cognitive load such as mental , physical , temporal ,performance , effort and frustration in the long term , short term, working , instant , responsive, process, recollect , reference , instruction and action memory and classify the observed values as per the generalized and specialized properties. The six working loads are observed in the ten types of learning system. The classification analysis aimed to predicate the pattern for learning system for specific learning challenges.

The experiences of Japanese elementary-school children living with ‘developmental disabilities’: Navigating peer relationships

This article focuses on children’s experiences of the evolving Japanese special education system. Relatively little disability research has focused on non-Western children, which restricts our understanding of the extent to which and how cultures vary in their responses to disability, and the impact of those differences on the developing child. ‘Developmental disabilities’ is a term used by Japanese educators to refer to various neurologically-based conditions which cause ‘milder’ difficulties with school functioning, for example, learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorders (ADHD), and Asperger’s Syndrome. Public schools in Japan recently implemented formal special education services for children with developmental disabilities. Our previous ethnographic research at Greenleaf Elementary School described how educators and parents balanced new requirements to provide formal individualized services with traditional Japanese practices of educating and socializing children within peer groups, in part, through practices that encourage supportive peer relationships. Using a longitudinal, multiple case study design, we describe how three children with developmental disabilities experienced these socialization practices, focusing on their active, individual efforts to connect with peers. Prior to their involvement in special education, all three children struggled with peer relationships. Over time, they used opportunities provided by educators to connect with peers and find their Ibasho, a place where they felt comfortable and accepted, within their peer groups. Children developed relationships with peers through self-regulating contact with them, and through their specialized interests and play. Understanding the experiences and creative responses of children from diverse cultural and subcultural groups provides a unique perspective from which to view our own disability policies and practices.

Characterizing disability in Head Start programs: Not so clearcut

► We identify three different subgroups of children in Head Start with disabilities. ► One-third of children (33%) met one or more of the criteria for a disability. ► Different percentages of disability are found with different criteria. ► Poorer outcomes are found for all three subgroups at preschool and kindergarten. ► Head Start and preschool special education programs may need better coordination. Head Start programs are required to set aside at least 10% of program slots for children with disabilities, but the percentage of children with disabilities served varies depending on the criteria used and source of the information. This study used the Head Start Family and Child Experiences Survey (FACES) 2000 data for a nationally representative sample to identify subgroups of children meeting three different criteria for having a disability or developmental delay. Results indicated that about one-third of children in Head Start (33%) met one or more of the criteria for a disability or delay, about one-third of those children (33%) met criteria for two or for all three of the subgroups. However, only 8% of children in Head Start had an Individualized Education Program (IEP). Children with disabilities or delays, regardless of the subgroup criteria used, had higher levels of many other risk factors associated with poor developmental and school readiness outcomes. They also exhibited poorer performance on early literacy, social, and behavioral measures both at entry into Head Start and at the end of kindergarten compared with children not in each of those subgroups. Implications of the findings for screening and assessment, serving children in Head Start programs, and the need for linkages between Head Start programs and the preschool special education system are discussed.

Professional Development Through Reflective Consultation in Early Intervention

The fields of special education/early intervention and infant mental health are moving closer, as practitioners find common ground in understanding and intervening to support vulnerable infants and toddlers. The importance of the impact of relationships on all developmental domains has been brought to the foreground. This includes relationships between parent and interventionist, as well as parent and child. Ongoing professional development in the form of reflective consultation supports the work of interventionists by fostering reflective functioning and facilitating a greater understanding of the impact of interactions and emotions in their work with families. This may lead to a broader and deeper range of intervention approaches and a better choice of intervention based on a better understanding of individual and family needs. This article describes a collaborative pilot project that integrates an infant mental health approach to support early interventionists within a special education system. The project supported the services of an infant mental health consultant to facilitate ongoing reflective consultation for 2 home-based school district teams working in an urban community. Data were collected to explore the effects of reflective consultation in supporting early interventionists, decreasing burnout, and increasing skills needed to work with diverse families. As a result of this project, the participants advocated for use of district professional development funds to continue reflective consultation with the consultant.

PHYSICAL EDUCATION FOR CHILDREN AND YOUTH WITH DISABILITIES IN THE SPECIAL EDUCATION AND GENERAL SCHOOL SYSTEMS IN GERMANY

This article will present an overview concerning the development and the current status of special education services in Germany. This description will differentiate between physical education programs for students with a disability attending a special education school for their specific type of disability, and for those attending a general school together with students without a disability. Extracurricular physical activity programs are classified separately in the special education system in Germany. Due to the heterogeneity within a specific type of disability as well as between students with and without a disability, concepts for designing physical activity and sport programs for various types of disabilities in Germany are oriented on the primacy of a “pedagogy of diversity” (Prengel, 2006), which is particularly reflected in the qualification of physical education teachers. This individualized orientation coincides with the paradigm change in working with people with disabilities – from a deficit to a resource point of view.

Disability and the Education System

Education is important for all children, but even more so for children with disabilities, whose social and economic opportunities may be limited. In this article, Laudan Aron and Pamela Loprest assess how well the nation's education system is serving students with disabilities. Aron and Loprest trace the evolution of the special education system in the United States from its origins in the civil rights movement of the mid-twentieth century. They note the dual character of federal legislation, which both guarantees eligible children with disabilities the right to a "free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive setting" and establishes a federal funding program to help meet this goal. They then review the types of services and accommodations these children receive from infancy through young adulthood. The special education system has given children with disabilities much greater access to public education, established an infrastructure for educating them, helped with the earlier identification of disabilities, and promoted greater inclusion of these children alongside their nondisabled peers. Despite these advances, many problems remain, including the over- and underidentification of certain subgroups of students, delays in identifying and serving students, and bureaucratic, regulatory, and financial barriers that complicate the program for everyone involved. More important, the authors show that special education students still lag behind their nondisabled peers in educational achievements, are often held to lower expectations, are less likely to take the full academic curriculum in high school, and are more likely to drop out of school. Only limited evidence is available on the effectiveness of specific special education services or on how to improve student achievement for this important subgroup of students. Improving the system will require better ways of understanding and measuring both ends of the special education continuum, namely, what services special education children need and receive, and what academic outcomes these students achieve. Without stronger evidence linking these two aspects of the system, Aron and Loprest argue, researchers will be unable to gauge the efficacy of the services now being delivered or to formulate effective reforms to the system as a whole.

The Study on Relationship between Organizational Justice and Job Satisfaction in Teachers Working in General, Special and Gifted Education Systems

In many years social researchers found organizational justice plays an important role in organizational processes and job satisfaction. In this research 300 male and female teachers in normal, special and NODET guidance schools chose by random sampling method. They responded researcher- made organizational justice scale and job satisfaction questionnaire (Minaee and Vismeh, 1380). findings of this research support there is a significant correlation between organizational justice and job satisfaction in teachers working in general, special and gifted education systems.

When Social Workers Meet Special Education Teachers: Action Research to Implement Curricular Changes in Taiwanese Special Education Systems

Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) offering supported employment services in Taiwan recently have identified a missing link between their programs and the vocational programs students with disabilities received in secondary special education system. Sponsored by a national initiative aimed to enhance public education through crossover trials and social inclusion under the umbrella of “HighScope Taiwan”, academics and mainly senior social workers devoted to supported employment for persons with intellectual disabilities started a two-way outreach program through action engagement in 2007. Action research became the common focus of the joint task forces across social work, public education systems, and academia. The article provides field-based reflections of the action research project and suggests ways in which practice of action research may increase social impact in the professional development of individuals.

Can special education make a difference? Exploring the differences of special educational systems between Finland and Norway in relation to the PISA results

This article discusses the differences in special educational systems in Finland and Norway in relation to the PISA scores. By comparing the Finnish system with the Norwegian, we have found that the strong focus both on early intervention and on reading and writing in Finland have positive effects on this country's PISA results. The situation in Norway is different, where there is less use of early intervention and a markedly weaker emphasis on reading and writing within special education. We discuss these differences in relation to these countries’ different cultural orientations with respect to education in general and to special education in particular.

Different Strategies, Different Outcomes? The History and Trends of the Inclusive and Special Education in Alberta (Canada) and in Finland

This study compares the strategies and delivery of education for students with special educational needs in the province of Alberta, Canada, and in the country of Finland, in the European Union. The rationale for comparing these two jurisdictions is grounded by the idea that both of these areas have high general standards of living, a well-developed public education system, and top results in international school achievement tests. The data consists of available educational policy papers, previous research papers, and educational statistics. This article first describes the special education system development and the current situation, followed by the funding system and discussion about the implications and outcomes of different policies. The historical analysis shows that while many similarities exist between Alberta and Finland, there are also some culturally-bound elements present that have strongly affected the progress and the decision-making process related to the organization of the education for students with special needs.

Down the Rabbit Hole

This article examines what we know about the experience of parents in the special education system—in particular, parents of children with learning disabilities since the passage of PL-94-142. Toward this end, I offer a review of special education literature about parent and professional collaboration, a rationale for relying upon a plurality of methodological frameworks in conducting research with parents of children with LD, and a challenge to the profession to raise and respond to ethical questions about our naturalized practices in alliance with parents.

Multilingual Prosperity–Inspiration Outsourced!

With the advent of broader scientific and socio-educational motivations across the globe, cross-cultural and cross-linguistic inspirations are increasingly prevalent in the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology. This essay presents a sketch of a multilingual community, India. An overview of the general educational structure and the special education system has been presented to acknowledge the sensitivity of the government and non-government sectors towards multiple languages. Finally, an attempt has been made to present some socio-linguistic questions that are inherently tied to potential globalization of the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology.