Special Education Needs - Essay Example

It should however be noted that though EAL pupils or bilingual learners have specific linguistic needs, they may not necessarily require special education needs, and thus EAL needs should not be confused with SEN (Milton, 2004, p. 4). This is because the difference between the instruction language and learner’s own language is not in itself a disability and does not solely make learning difficult. Provision of special education needs was emphasized at the Warnock Committee forum where special education needs and provision of special learning were broadly articulated and recommendations made to provoke official thinking about special education.

Earlier disability concerns revolved around deafness, blindness, physical and sensory impairment, and speech defects that have medical interventions. Defects such as educational ‘sub-normality’ and maladjustment could not have been addressed medically. No children regardless of their impairment levels should be regarded as non-educable and hence special education needs must be available to all children with disability (Beevridge, 1999, P.2). More recent models that have addressed special education needs in children included the ‘Every Child Matters’ strategy of 2003 and the 2004 model ‘Barriers to Inclusion’. . Generality across different areas of learning could be mild or severe.

Special education needs include aspects of special access to the curriculum, provision of tailored curriculum and attention to the learning environment. Children with sensory and physical impairments require special equipment, adapted written material or/and attention to positioning to fully participate in learning experiences. Assessment is vital in every stage of special education provision and involves early screening to determine the child’s abilities in terms of language, cognitive, emotional, and social orientation.

Screening helps determine additional needs. The method of assessment for English language acquisition in EAL pupils with physical and sensory impairments should be similar to that for EAL counterparts without disabilities. The measurement of performance of EAL pupils with disabilities should be similar to that of their monolingual colleagues. To inform planning and targeting, a clear assessment of second language acquisition by EAL learners is important (Milton, 2004, p.4). When decisions are made that the identified cases have special needs, special attention is recommended (Algozzine and Ysseldiyke, 2006, p.8). Also of importance to the teacher is the concept of ‘keep it simple’ in content delivery which is part of expository approach, use of the appropriate pace during instruction to allow content synthesis and amount of assistance accorded.

To promote learning for EAL learners with or without SEN, certain strategies are useful such as creating a team set up and embracing collaborative activities, pairing and mentorship,