Diversity & inclusion - Research Paper Example

?Running Head: DIVERSITY & INCLUSION Diversity & Inclusion Teacher’s ID Introduction American legislation has shown progressive development in the past few decades when it comes to children with special needs. One of the major transformations taken by legislation was from The Education for All Handicapped Children act to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. All these changes and development have ensured that individuals with special needs are provided with all the necessary support they require from society and state in order to have access to appropriate education. The main focus of this law is to ensure that special emphasis is put on individuals instead of their disability and state provides them with all the sources required for education either in a public schools or any other facility under individualized education programs. These individualized programs require extensive evaluation in order to ascertain disability of the child, and referrals of IEP teams. According to Gargiulo (2006), "The journey from referral to assessment to the development of an IEP and eventual placement in the most appropriate environment is a comprehensive process incorporating many different phases (p. 59). All these phases are outlined by IDEA (2004) and have been made broader in order to include needs of children with disability, their parents and teachers with a goal to ensure that these children have all the opportunities to acquire education from the inception. 2. Key Components of ‘The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (PL 94-142) 1975’ This law is currently known as Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and originally had six major components which provided complete protection to education of special children and necessary authority to their parents in order to ensure that their child was receiving due attention and quality education from their teachers. Some of the main components of this law are given below: a) Zero Reject/ FAPE This provision ensured that a free and appropriate public education was made available to non-disabled children as well as special children in public schools within the age limit of 6-17 years. However, these age brackets varied in different states dependent on the state education available to non-disabled children. b) Non-discriminatory Identification and Evaluation With the help of this clause, necessary protection was provided to children with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. The mandate ensured that misidentification of students with special needs is refrained and placement of children in special education programs is just. For this purpose, assessment is performed in child’s primary language, conducted by qualified professionals, customized to examine specific areas requiring attention, consist of at least two procedures, should reflect non-discrimination against any disability and a multidisciplinary team proficient in child’s disability is involved in the administration of this assessment (“Current Legislation”, n.d). c) Individualized Education Program (IEP) An education program should be designed for children with identified disability with the help of a team called IEP team (comprising of professionals, parents and other personnel) who would annually develop or update such programs (“Current Legislation”, n.d). d) Least Restrictive Environment This provision indicates that necessary effort should be made to ensure that children who are disabled should be educated with children having no disability until unless this educational setting does not meet the needs of every child. e) Due Process This mandate allows parents to contest educational provisions and disability programs designed for their children. Hence, multiple rights are provided to parents for reviewing educational provisions before and after placement of their child. f) Parental Participation This mandate allows parents to participate in placement and IEP development along with evaluation regarding children’s progress and educational records (Slavin, 2006). IDEA Reauthorizations a) PL 99-457 (1986) This amendment of Education for All Handicapped Act 1975 extends to all the six provisions of this act related to free and appropriate public education to children within the age of 3-5 years. Furthermore, this amendment also caters to the needs of parents and families having children with diagnosed disability from birth to 3 years by providing financial assistance, state-level interagency programs, individualized family service plans, case management services, procedural safeguards, smooth transition of services and effective personnel development (“Current Legislation”, n.d). 2) PL 101-476 PL 104-476 changed name of EAHCA 1975 to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). There were several new categories i.e. autism and traumatic brain injury, added to earlier provisions of PL 94-142. Also, it mandated students’ transitions services to begin earlier than 16th birthday and related services like rehabilitation counselling and social work services were also added. The main feature of this amendment was change of focus from children to individuals and putting emphasis on person than disability (“Current Legislation”, n.d). 3) PL 105-L7 (1997) This amendment further extended the least restrictive environment provisions and use of assisted technology devices and services to IEPs of all students. It further strengthen the role of parents, guardians and surrogate parents by allowing maximum participation in children’s annual educational goals, current performance, decisions regarding placement and eligibility. Also, various provisions related to state-based teaching and learning were modified which ensured that performance of disabled students is reported periodically, a statement of transition services and plan for transition is formulated on timely basis and paraprofessionals are well-supervised according to state legislation (“Current Legislation”, n.d). 4) IDEA 2004: PL 108-446 In this reauthorization, major changes including need for highly qualified teacher, state funding for various purposes (professional development, programs needed for training personnel, consultative models for early interventions, expansion of recruitment and retention of highly qualified personnel), short-term individualized education plans for students who take alternate assessments along with other IEP related changes, mandated early educational interventions for children under five years, and redefinition of eligibility criteria for disability i.e. absence of appropriate reading and math instructions, limited English language proficiency. Also, IQ discrepancy model was removed as a sole determinant of IDEA eligibility (Jones & Apling, 2005). IDEA Guidelines and Processes for Referring a Student with a Suspected Disability for Evaluation for Special Education Services In order to obtain students’ referral for special education services, the child needs to be evaluated in the first place. The primary phase in this evaluation process is identification of the disability by a multidisciplinary team. Presence of this team would ensure appropriate evaluation and categorization of disability detected with the help of multiple tests. However, before any such evaluation taking place, some pre-referral interventions can be designed by teachers and school body to eliminate any hindrance to child’s current education (Smith, 2010). Further evaluations would include examination of students’ academic performance and also results of Norm-referenced tests that would examine his/ her performance with their peers (Smith, 2010). Also, behaviour in domestic settings will also be evaluated. It is important to note that multiple tests would be conducted to examine child’s cognitive and behavioural characteristics along with educational performance in order to examine abilities of child with reference to further learning (Salvia, Ysseldyke & Bolt, 2010). In this regard, criterion-referenced tests will also be performed to identify tasks that a child is able to perform in order to predict suitable learning environment for them (Slavin, 2006). Once all the necessary tests have been performed, this multidisciplinary team will evaluate the findings and discuss them with child’s parents. Furthermore, a child’s interview may also be conducted in order to expand evaluation process. Once identified with a disability and appeared eligible for special education services, referral for IEP is made which leads to scheduling of IEP meeting and preparation of IEP by the designated team (Smith, 2010). Conclusion A critical analysis of history of legislation encompassing education of children and individuals with disability helped in understanding that these developments in law have given rise to an extensive framework for care of children with special needs with a primary emphasis on providing necessary educational support in the vicinity of public educational institutions with children having no disabilities. However, when a child cannot be provided with it, a specialized and individualized program can be designed with the help of multi-professional team after evaluation of child’s progress and behaviour in different settings and confirming their disability. References Current Legislation. (n.d) Retrieved 21 November 2013 from http://college.cengage.com/education/resources/res_prof/students/spec_ed/legislation/ Jones, N.L., & Apling, R.N. (2005). The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA): Overview of P.L. 198-446. Retrieved 21 November 2013 from http://usinfo.org/enus/education/overview/docs/ideaover.pdf Salvia, J., Ysseldyke, J.E. & Bolt, S.E. (2010). Assessment: In Special and Inclusive Education: In Special and Inclusive Education. CA: Cengage Learning. Smith, D.D. (2010). Introduction to Special Education. 6th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Slavin, R. (2006). Educational Psychology, 8th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Read More