The Benefits, and Challenges of Special Needs Students Accessing the General Curriculum - Essay Example

?The Benefits, Pitfalls, And Challenges Of Special Needs Accessing The General Curriculum Introduction It could be said that teachers have aunique ability in developing the endowments of children who are apparently normal in physical and psychological growth. Apart from parents and family members, they have the responsibility to monitor students developing the skills that could help them not only in academic fields, but in life as well. And dealing with special needs students is rather challenging task even for professional educators. It is common knowledge that the society in general is more concerned with academic competence of normal students. But one factor that cannot be ignored by society is that there is a group of young people (male or female) who might need a certain amount of special attendance so that the teaching profession can attain a special status that stands apart from formal teaching procedures. This paper attempts to review such a stand which takes into consideration legal, moral, and social aspects with regard to children challenged with any form of disability and attempts to bind or conform a general curriculum which such children could be exposed to. The practical implementation of the needs of special needs students: The 1997 amendments to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) made it clear that each student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) should clearly describe how the learner’s “disability affects the child’s involvement with and progress in the general curriculum” and what “services, program modifications, and supports necessary for the child to be involved in and progress in the general curriculum” (Wehmeyer, Agran & Lattin, 2001, p. 327). These guidelines have prompted educators to reconsider how the educational programs of special needs students are designed and carried out. Standard based reforms have been identified as beneficial to special needs students accessing general curriculum. The benefits of standards-based reforms are that “students would have access to a challenging curriculum, be held to high expectations, and be within the accountability system and, thus, not excluded or marginalized” (Wehmeyer, Agran & Lattin, 2001, p. 328). However, special efforts should be undertaken to ensure that no misapplication or overemphasis of any component of standards-based reform must occur in the teaching learning process. The authors argue that special needs students are just like others and these learners achieve challenging standards only when there is higher expectation is demanded from them. However, there is also the danger of setting high standards and narrowing the curriculum to core content areas resulting in higher dropout rate among such special needs learners who already have difficulty and subsequent previous experiences of failure. The rationale to offer special needs students access to the general curriculum seeks “to ensure that all students have access to a challenging curriculum, to ensure that all students are held to high expectations, and to ensure that students with disabilities are not left out of the accountability system being established for schools” (Wehmeyer, Agran & Lattin, 2001, p. 330). It can be noticed that parental and teacher expectations are low for students with special needs. Therefore, it is essential that special needs children are offered such educational programs that challenge them and that everyone, including the teachers and parents, holds high expectations for their achievement. The question whether special education curriculum or the general curriculum is best suitable for special needs learners is worth analyzing. It is true that a general curriculum makes neither distinction nor marginalization among the learners. While general curriculum offers equal educational opportunities for everyone, its competency to offer Individualized Education Programs for the special needs children is quite debatable. Therefore, it is imperative that the general curriculum is “adapted, augmented, or altered on an individual basis” and that the special needs students are “held to high expectations and are provided ample opportunities to succeed within an educational program derived from the general curriculum” (Wehmeyer, Agran & Lattin, 2001, p. 332). There are many who argue that students with severe disabilities benefit more from individually determined content rather than the general curriculum as it very often fails to meet the diverse needs of such special needs students. This calls for the need to frame an alternate curriculum for these learners. However, researchers have observed that three levels of curricular modifications which include curriculum adaptation, curriculum argumentation, and curriculum alteration (Wehmeyer, Agran & Lattin, 2001, p. 334) will be necessary for special needs students to access the general curriculum. While the general curriculum will be appropriate for certain special needs students, others will need curriculum adaptation, argumentation, and alteration. Similarly, offering special needs students’ access to general curriculum necessitates the judicious use of assistive technology as this would better help the learners cope with the general curriculum. One of the major challenges of special needs students accessing the general curriculum is framing a competent universally designed curriculum (UDC). Very often general curriculum is designed for the core group of students whereas it fails to represent the diverse needs of learners with severe disabilities. This calls for the need to have more flexible curriculum – the universally designed curriculum. The advantages of UDC have been pointed out by many researchers. In this respect researchers, such as Hitchcock, Meyer, Rose and Jackson (2002, p. 9), observe that the UDC framework helps people see that inflexible curricular materials and methods are barriers to diverse learners just as inflexible buildings with stairs as the only entry option are barriers to people with physical disabilities. Thus, it can be observed that the UDC takes into account the diverse learners and their learning differences in the classrooms. It is not enough that the special needs students are placed along with other normal learners in the classroom. On the other hand, special efforts are to be undertaken to adapt or modify the general curriculum in its original design and use appropriate and assistive technologies to support the special needs students. Similarly, one should always bear in mind that no single method of transaction will be effective in such diverse classrooms, and so in a UDL classroom the teachers need to follow multiple pathways by presenting concepts in multiple ways, offering students multiple means of expressing their knowledge, and providing a variety of options to support each student’s engagement with learning (Hitchcock, Meyer, Rose & Jackson, 2002, pp. 12-13). This attitude has been accepted by other educationists. In short, a common curriculum is not acceptable in modern society that has the capability with expertise and knowledge to understand the difference between normal children and those who are challenged (Lee et al., 2006, p. 199). According to a survey by Agran et al. regarding the effectiveness of IDEA, the majority of the teachers (approximately 75%) felt that the general curriculum would help challenged students benefit in being part of the community without feeling inferior or handicapped. But it is apparent from the study that those teachers directly involved with such challenged students felt that standardization was common irrespective of whether a student was challenged or not. Thus, it can be argued that UDC curriculum can effectively be employed to provide access, participation, and progress in the general curriculum for students with special needs. But the UDC should take into consideration graphics and other visual sources that can help such handicapped students. Other studies show that peer support can play a great part in helping challenged children with integration into the normal society (Carter, 2005, p. 16). The article states that influence and support of normal students could be an added advantage in this regard. If teachers and school authorities can manage to form some sort of relationship between normal and challenged children, it could help the latter group to become more self-confident and independent to a certain extent. Carter (2005) states that peer influence can even be substituted as an alternative to IDEA and UDC. Teachers could be encouraged and trained to have interaction between normal and challenged students without incurring additional costs. It would appear that teachers and educational institutions have enough research material to effectively implement integration of challenged students into the mainstream apart from what has been mentioned above. One particular study would provide additional insight in this area. Clayton, Burdge, Denham & Kearns (2006) provide some steps that can help in this area. Challenged students should not be seen as such and high expectations should be set on such batch of people. This would be based on the assumption that challenged students need to be mentally supported more than normal students in order to develop their capabilities. But the study indicates that some special needs on the part of the teachers and the school authorities are necessary in this case. Nonetheless, teachers and school authorities apparently need a foundation for involving challenged children based on laws and statutes mentioned above. But studies on the area also show that competent people can depend on their own abilities by studying such aspects like student psychology. And again, access to general curriculum without special aids will only confuse teachers as to how such children can be brought to the mainstream of society (Argan & Alper, 2002, p. 126). While this discussion has been generally focused in the United States, it should be noted that global authorities like the United Nations have taken actions in this regard and have included the aspect in the Millennium Development Goals (Croft, 2010, p. 1). This aspect of assisting children with handicaps is apparently receiving attention across the globe including developing countries. It could be said that this attitude which originated in developed countries has now been considered a necessity in other regions as well. Conclusion Any modern society that has a well established education system should take into consideration the needs of challenged children. Strategies like IDEA, mentioned above, are acceptable and even practical in this regard. But it is up to individual educational institutions and their teachers to see how these strategies help challenged children to cope with and survive in the society without an excess of external assistance. Furthermore, financial and other factors come into play. Federally assisted schools may not have the financial resources to implement such practices. Parents or families that have the financial capacity to send their children to special schools may benefit in such instances. But sending challenged children to special schools may only result in classifying them as different. The Concept of IDEA is an excellent strategy of bringing such children as a part of the society. The only problem is that governmental strategy may not be practically effective on the field. Strategies as promoted by other authors mentioned above, like peer support, setting high standards of expectations, etc., will also be helpful. Studies of implementation from other countries will also be seen as helpful in this regard. But the crucial factors are government policy, financial support, and most importantly, the cooperation and understanding of the teachers and school authorities. References Argan, A., & Alper, S. (2002). Access to the general curriculum for students with significant disabilities: What it means to teachers. Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 37(2), 123-133. Carter, E. W. (2005). Effects of peer support interventions on students' access to the general curriculum and social interactions. Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities, 30(1), 15-25. Clayton, J., Burdge, M., Denham, A., & Kearns, J. (2006). A four-step process for accessing the general curriculum for students with significant cognitive disabilities. Croft. A. ( 2010). Create pathways to access. University of Sussex. Retrieved 29 March 2012, from http://www.create-rpc.org/pdf_documents/PTA36.pdf Hitchcock, C., Meyer, A., Rose, D., & Jackson, R. (2002). Providing New Access to the General Curriculum. Teaching Exceptional Children, 35(2), 8-17. Lee, S., Amos, B. A., Gragoudas, S., Lee,Y., Shogren, K. A., Theoharis, R., & Wehmeyer, M. L. (2006). Curriculum Augmentation and Adaptation Strategies to Promote Access to the General Curriculum for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. Education and Training in Developmental Disabilities, 41(3), 199-212. Wehmeyer, M. L., Agran, M., & Lattin, D. (2001). Achieving Access to the General Curriculum for Students with Mental Retardation: A Curriculum Decision-Making Model. Education and Training in Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, 36(4), 327-342. Read More

 

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