Special Education For Children With Disabilities

Millions of children in our nation are identified as being "children with disabilities". Prior to the 1960s, millions of children with disabilities received inadequate or inappropriate special education services from the public schools and another 1 million children were excluded from school altogether. Disabilities such as autism, poverty, and racism are just a few of the “disabilities” that have blocked the pathways of over a million people thought out the US. My goal for this paper is to thoroughly examine the three main factors that I personally believe have the most traumatic and continuous effect on society that will ultimately repeat itself and create a pattern of issues that society will be forced to resolve in the future. It is my desire and personal goal to acknowledge each issue that many children face, label and prove it to be a awful disability, an find a realistic resolution to each issue addressed as a disability. According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, in the United States, 21 percent of children live in families with incomes below the federal poverty line. Although many of these families have working parents, low wages and unstable employment make it difficult to provide the necessary resources for proper childhood development. Not only does research indicate that poverty is a threat to a child's well-being, but it also affects his ability to learn. Regular attendance at school is important for educational success. Absenteeism has a negative affect on academic achievement in reading, math, and general knowledge. The NCCP has found that among poor children, chronic absenteeism in kindergarten predicts low achievement levels at the end of the fifth grade. Poor families' lack of resources such as transportation, food, and clothing may prevent children from attending school regularly. Illness is another significant factor to consider with regard to absenteeism since 20 percent of low-income infants and toddlers do not have updated immunizations, which may be required for school admittance. Poverty's affects on the emotional development of children has a negative impact on education. According to the Connecticut General Assembly, research shows that children from poor families experience emotional problems more often than non-poor children. As explained on teach-nology.com, emotions are connected to memory, which affect the capacity of children to grasp ideas, think and learn. This lack of emotional development interferes with language development, further preventing the development of higher-order thinking skills that assist with independent problem solving. Children living in poverty may be fearful, which can be converted to aggression, irritability, and apathy, all of which have a negative affect on learning.
Poor cognitive development affects academic performance. Children who live below the poverty line are 1.3 times more likely to have developmental delays or learning disabilities compared to non-poor children. Research indicates that nutrition impacts children's cognitive ability and that poor nutrition retards physical growth, brain development, and cognitive function. Chronic stress from lack of nutrition and a poor environment inhibit the growth of dendrites and limit interconnections among neurons. Poor children who attend school hungry perform more poorly on standardized tests compared to non-hungry children. Poverty also increases the risk for lead poisoning, which lowers IQ and causes speech and hearing problems. A significant effect of child poverty on education is school unreadiness; the CGA states that 40 percent of American children are not prepared for primary schooling. School unreadiness is seen in low-income children, who enter kindergarten lagging behind their peers and by fourth grade do not meet reading proficiency standards. Children in poverty may not be ready for school because they miss out on things that help with the development of academic skills, such as computers, visits to zoos and museums, preschool programs, and having access to literature and educational reading materials. Children's home environments have a major effect on their cognitive and psychological development. Children develop higher IQs when they are raised in enriched environments that provide them with new experiences and verbal interactions. An impoverished social or physical environment can interfere with a child's motivation to explore and learn. Particularly, important is the development of a child's self-regulation or self-control, which the child needs in order to pay attention and learn. Research indicates children living in poverty have lower academic achievement. These statistics show that there is obviously a nationwide problem with poverty. People who suffer from poverty often lack education. Education is the most valuable thing to have this day and age and a lack of it often leads to poverty. Without an education most people get left behind. People living in poverty obviously feel less educated than middle and upper class society because of the discrimination against them in the lack of schooling they are able to receive. By not successful fulfilling the proper education to children living in poverty we are denying them their civil rights an in essences crippling society as we know it. INSERT SOULATIONS FOR PROVERT There are many reasons for school failure, but a common one is a specific learning disability. Children with learning disabilities can have intelligence in the normal but the specific learning disability may make teachers and parents concerned about their general intelligence. Often, these children may try very hard to follow instructions, concentrate, and "be good" at home and in school. Yet, despite this effort, they are not mastering school tasks and are falling behind. Learning disabilities affect at least 1 in 10 schoolchildren.It is believed that learning disabilities are caused by a difficulty with the nervous system that affects receiving, processing, or communicating information. They may also run in families. Some children with learning disabilities are also hyperactive; unable to sit still, easily distracted, and have a short attention span.
Child and adolescent psychiatrists are aware that some of the long range consequence of learning disabilities can be lessened with early intervention. However, if not detected and treated early, they can have a "snowballing" effect. For instance, a child who does not learn addition in elementary school cannot understand algebra in high school. The child, trying very hard to learn, becomes more and more frustrated, and develops emotional problems such as low self-esteem in the face of repeated failure. Some learning disabled children misbehave in school because they would rather be seen as "bad" than "stupid."
Generally, an important first step is to understand the child's learning difficulties and consider how they will affect their communication, self help skill, willingness to accept discipline, impact on play, and capacity for independence. Such problems deserve a comprehensive evaluation by an expert who can assess all of the different issues affecting the child. A child and adolescent psychiatrist can help coordinate the evaluation, and work with school professionals and others to have the evaluation and educational testing done to clarify if a learning disability exists. This includes talking with the child and family, evaluating their situation, reviewing the educational testing, and consulting with the school. The child and adolescent psychiatrist will then make recommendations on appropriate school placement, the need for special help such as special educational services or speech-language therapy and help parents assist their child in maximizing his or her learning potential. Sometimes individual or family psychotherapy will be recommended. Medication may be prescribed for hyperactivity or distractibility. ((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((((( Parents need to consider the delicate balance between providing too much or too little assistance to their child to help them meet their educational goals. It is important to strengthen the child's self-confidence, which is vital for healthy development, and also help parents and other family members better understand and cope with the realities of living with a child with learning disabilities.

Inclusion In A Regular Classroom Setting
.... that 12.2 percent of all children below the age of twenty-one received some form of special education. The most frequently reported disabilities are speech or ....
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Special Education: A Field of Learning Disabilities
.... ways than other students, however, these special techniques are .... assist the student to progress through their education. .... Children with learning disabilities! ....
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Student Behavioral Disability
The teacher has had no special education training in working with children with disabilities, and the principal tells her that getting an aid or classroom help ....
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Homlessness in the US
.... found that they have a higher rate of learning disabilities. There is also a higher need to assess children who might be eligible for special education services ....
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Main Streaming
.... students in the classroom with special education students there .... of the changes in these children was that .... their peers and friends with disabilities and also ....
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The Alliance project provides technical assistance for establishing, developing, and coordination of parent centers, offers technology resources and information to lead parent centers in the new millennium, and informs parent centers about IDEA and other laws that affect families of children with disabilities. It also works on building leadership among families and advocates to help them secure services and opportunities for children and young adults with disabilities and promotes cultural diversity and cultural competency. This assistance helps parents to participate more effectively with professionals in meeting the educational needs of children and youth with disabilities.
Recent years, however, have seen an increasing concern regarding the quality of outcomes for those students served under IDEA. These growing concerns, along with provisions contained in the 1997 reauthorization of IDEA, have insured that students with disabilities will not be left out of the national debate regarding accountability for educational outcomes. The 1997 reauthorization responded to concerns regarding the quality of services provided to special education students by including elements that addressed access to the general education curriculum along with accountability and public reporting of outcomes. While keeping in place original requirements that assured handicapped students access to a 'free appropriate public education,' the reauthorization added requirements designed to address the quality of outcomes for these students. These requirements mandate the inclusion of students with disabilities in general state and district-wide assessments for those students who are not able to part

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