Special Education is a remarkable resource for parents of students with disabilites. Understanding what it is and what it can and cannot do is crucial to maximizing your use of this tool.
The late 1960’s and early 1970’s saw a huge battle waged by parents, educators and politicians who felt the standard educational system was neither fair nor appropriate for students with handicaps. At that time, students with severe physical or mental challenges were segregated into special classes or, more often, into special schools where their needs were met by trained personnel. But the segregation and the training of teachers were an issue for parents of less-severely handicapped students as well as those who were benefiting from the existing system.
1973 saw the signing of the Rehabilitation Act, a coup for the civil rights of the handicapped. In 1975, with the authorization by the US Department of Education of the first version of the federal law later known as the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), Special Education in its present form was born.
IDEA
The law states, in part, that all students, regardless of handicapping condition, are eligible to receive and must be provided with “free appropriate public education” (FAPE). In addition, the original IDEA contained regulations and formulae for determining the level of handicap and the type of teaching required to maximize the student’s potential. This gave birth to Child Study Teams, replacement classes, supplemental instruction, self-contained classes, and a raft of other modifications of the regular education programs already in existence.
IDEA has since been reauthorized, modified, added to and subtracted from. The most recent authorization occurred in 2004, and the details are available online from the US Department of Education or from your local school district. All parents have available to them all of the information in all of the public documents ever created.
Should you read it all? Most of it may not make sense to you. IDEA, like many government documents, is written in language that is, at best, difficult to comprehend. At worst, it leaves professionals and politicians free and almost compelled to discuss ad nauseum the interpretation of the various statements contained within. What you might benefit from is the booklet known fondly as “PRISE”—Parental Rights in Special Education. This is a short summary of the basics of IDEA, but leaves out Section 504.
Section 504
This is not actually part of IDEA, but rather a portion of the federal civil rights statutes called the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. It is the section that applies to the education of physically disabled students and adults in the US, and will only be accessed through your school district’s special services department because it has no other home. Every district in every state is required to have a 504 officer, whose job it is to make sure that every student covered by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act is getting what he or she needs in the way of appropriate education.
Most often, Section 504 is used as a temporary fix for students who are ill or have been injured severely enough to be unable to follow their normal daily routines, so it is not, per se, special education. Students with Attention Deficit Disorder fall into the 504 category, as do students with chronic illnesses. A student’s 504 plan might include alterations to attendance policies to allow for doctor’s appointments or physical therapy. It might include a shortened school day. It might even include homebound instruction if the student is unable to travel to school.
What is does not necessarily include is a specially modified curriculum in a given subject area. If the student has had major surgery to his arm, for instance, he might be allowed to tape record his lessons or have someone act as a scribe to write his homework or tests. He will still, however, be responsible for the curriculum that is being covered. Special Education allows for curriculum modifications.
What’s special about special ed?
Special education professionals are trained in a different way from other teachers. They are taught methods of presenting information based on the preferred learning styles of the student. They learn ways to modify tests and homework so that the student is exposed to the academic material he needs in order to fulfill his potential without having to undergo serious emotional trauma. Special educators are trained to recognize the various types of learning problems that exist, identify them, refer the child for testing, find appropriate materials, and apply their knowledge and skill to maximizing the student’s learning experience. Special Education is an academic “fix” for academic problems caused by an identifiable disability.
If your child is having reading difficulties, he may have a reading disability. If that is the case, then a special ed teacher trained in reading techniques may be just the ticket for bringing the student up to speed. There are several learning disabilities that impair math conceptual learning, reading comprehension, word decoding, memory, and organization. For all of these, there are adjustments that can be made to the educational environment that will allow the student to progress at his maximum pace to his maximum level of achievement.
Usually a true learning disability will show up when the student is in the second grade. That is when reading and writing become important in the curriculum, which tends to flush out students with difficulties in those areas. Other problems might surface earlier or later. Mental retardation, for instance, is usually obvious in infancy, while some students manage to adapt and cover up minor learning problems until they reach the upper elementary grades and even high school. Dyslexia becomes apparent in toddlers. “Specific Learning Disabilities” can be covered up for a long time, until someone realizes that the student is suffering serious stress and can no longer hide the problem.
Easy Access?
The route to finding help for a child with learning problems is simpler than many parents imagine. If the child is not old enough for school, your pediatrician is the first line of defense. If you suspect a problem, don’t be afraid to bring it up. Your child’s doctor may not be an expert in these areas, but he can refer you to someone who is. He will at least know the basic checks and tests for some of the more impressive disabilities.
If your child is of school age, then the teacher is the next person in line. His classroom teacher will be able to tell you if she sees a problem. She can be put on alert to watch for signs, and she can be asked to report on a regular basis on the child’s progress. You have a right to ask for these things.
The school nurse is another person you might want to contact. Again, some disabilities are difficult to assess without testing, but a child who spends an inordinate amount of time in the nurse’s office might be a candidate for further appraisal. Stress can cause the tummy aches that plague many young school children. Headaches could mean a vision or hearing disturbance.
Finally, there will be a team of experts (often called a Child Study Team) in the district to whom you can appeal for testing for your child. This is not as cut-and-dried a process as it has been in the past.
Too many left behind by NCLB?
The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) has forced many child study teams to stop classifying students in certain categories and to use a much narrower limit for determining when a child crosses the line into disability. Still, it is the job of the team, funded by your taxes, to be available to test your child if he meets certain basic qualifications.
Remember that the federal government, while capable of legislating the means and methods which will be employed by the states and, in turn, the educational system, is in no way suggesting that it will take responsibility for a misinterpretation of the regulations. If budgetary constraints or an error in application of the law are keeping your district from making all of the educational possibilities available to your child, you are welcome to take your case to “due process”. In other words, you can sue the school district if you feel they have been unwilling to cooperate.
What special ed can’t do
Perhaps the most frustrating situation in education today arises when a student is simply unwilling to work. The current atmosphere of leniency both at home and at school has sadly stripped many students of their motivation to work hard to learn. There is nothing special ed or any other academic repair program can do to give a student the willingness to move forward. Parents trying hard to give their children their every desire sometimes wind up removing the motive for working. Schools, misinterpreting No Child Left Behind’s edict that every child be given the necessary tools for success, pass students who do not deserve passing grades. By the time these students reach their final years in high school, they are far behind in academic achievement, do not have the organizational skills to move forward, and have no clue how to fix the problem.
Special Education can:
Help a child overcome or cope with a diagnosed learning disability
Give a developmentally disabled child the opportunity to maximize his learning potential
Teach coping skills that can be applied throughout the child’s life
Give support and connection to students whose disabilities leave them feeling left out and unable to cope
Special education is not designed to:
Cure laziness in an otherwise normal child
Impart a work ethic where none exists
Repair damage done by drug or alcohol abuse
Make up for neglect or abuse within the family
Give a student direction if he is not interested in succeeding
A student who is, by his own preference or family habit, not a reader at home will not do well in school, period. Vocabulary and concepts outside the student’s daily world are available only through exposure. Knowing how to read is literacy. Applying that skill to actual reading is learning. Non-readers tend to do poorly on standardized tests and will often test below grade level in several academic areas. They are not handicapped, and special ed cannot help them.
A student who is not encouraged to be responsible at home will often be irresponsible in school, missing homework assignments and, as a result, doing poorly on tests and quizzes. This is also not a disability, and special ed cannot help these students, either.
A student who feels there will be no repercussions for his behavior, including lack of attention in class and acting out will generally miss a great deal of learning time. This, too, is not a disability. Special ed will only help such a student if the problem is so severe and long-standing that he is considered to have a behavior disorder.
The take-away message for parents
Take an honest look at your child. Be frank about what your expectations are for him. Rate him against other children his age. If you are seeing a child who is not motivated, has no work ethic, and is simply not doing his very best, then special ed is not the answer. Neither are excuses and explanations. If you find you are protecting your child from success by allowing him to fall behind and by indulging his unwillingness to push himself, you may want to talk to a psychologist or therapist who specializes in family problems. Often, it is the children who demonstrate to the public an underlying and well-hidden problem within the family that could be sorted out with just a little help and a sincere effort. Special Education cannot do that for you.
If, however, you believe that you are seeing a true disability, then waste no time in following the path outlined above to access the special help he needs for success.