Special Needs Students - Thesis Example

Running Head: SPECIAL NEEDS How do special needs learn? Can they learn? From teachers? SCHOOL How Do Special Needs Learn? Can They Learn? From Teachers? Introduction Nowadays, special needs students are a frequent visitor at the front of our public education system. The drive to engage all students in the regular classroom has led to innovative forces of classroom measures for successful communication inside the classroom (Cooper et al, 2002). In the integration of special needs students into any classroom, participation of these students together with the regular ones in classroom activities is essential. This consists of arrival and dismissal at the same time during schooldays. These students should be able to survey the whole classroom, and at the same time freely interact with the teachers and the mainstream students (Snow, 2002). Special needs students should likewise mingle with other students and partake in peer and teacher socializations. An effective technique for the integration of special needs students entails simply a cue not to treat them as special persons with disabilities. In this process, students with disabilities achieve a sense of belonging and a feeling of acceptance (Cooper et al, 2002). This paper will discuss how special needs students learn through the help of inclusion and accommodation in the regular classroom settings. This paper will also prove that teachers play an important role in educating the special needs students. Accommodation and Inclusion Academic institutions, as well as educators, are expected to make adjustments for the diversities of special needs students by modifying features in the school setting that may be unfavorable to the students advancement. Accommodation refers to modification of the school facilities, programs, and training in relation to education of the disabled students. In court cases, accommodation has been used to refer to amendments in the special needs students’ education. Likewise, accommodation refers to advances wherein several components of the entire learning environment of the students are modified for more education encouragement. The educators emphasize on amending the educational atmosphere or the learning necessities to enable these students to be educated regardless of their limitations or deficits (Price et al, 1998). Accommodation entails the utilization of customized training practices, more bendable administrative methods, adaptable educational conditions, or any classroom activity that focuses on the use of more integral abilities or that offers revised educational processes (Price et al, 1998). Learning Study Skills The majority of students, particularly the ones with learning disabilities, can profit from study skills training. The so-called study skills are detailed reading activities and other “metacognitive strategies” to learn the school’s core curriculum. Textbook reading is relatively diverse from what disabled students usually encounter in the use of developmental materials. Almost every reading book is conventional in substance and charmingly presented with vibrant photos and representations. It becomes an obligation for students to remember series and incidences about stories, formulate easy presumptions, and narrate accounts subsequent to reading. In contrast, textbooks are mainly expository in nature, and contain several alterations in typography. Textbooks are generally boring and loaded with unfamiliar words and strange ideas. In addition to being monotonous, textbooks are packed with information and perceptions, causing additional difficulties in the student’s task. In learning the presentations of the usual subject matter, study skills are fundamentally helpful (Price et al, 1998). Learning Through the Use of Visual Aids Through the aid of technology in the classroom, such as computers, educators can easily present their lectures to students. Forms of media, such as projectors, videos, tapes, radios, magazines, and newspapers, also play a substantial part in educating students both the non-disabled and the disabled. Hasselbring (1994) noted that "curricular embellishment" is a successful education strategy by using the school’s traditional syllabus and enhancing it with media. This technique allows the teacher an easy flow of procedural teaching which lessens stresses about creating remarkable adjustments in the mainstream classroom for student accommodation. Hasselbring added that ”instructional opportunities” can be improved with media, supporting the scheme on education presumption concerning the enrichment of auditory understanding (Price et al, 1998). The educator’s use of visual aids in any academic presentation can help support the most important ideas at hand, sustain the student’s interest, and develop intellectual capacity. Drawings and designs, real pictures or dioramas, photographs, and big wording typescripts can assist better comprehension and facilitate longer concentration of the special needs students. The greater the information used, the better the possibilities that the student will be given provisions for structural cognitive formations in learning (Price et al, 1998). Learning through Audio Technique Fine auditory listening conditions are essential for students with hearing problems and other students with sensory disorders so as to allow them to build the utmost use of their remaining sound perception (Graham & Fraser, 1993). Deficient and bad classroom acoustics creates complications in comprehending verbal communication and can result to disappointment and reduced positive work behavior. While the consequence of poor acoustics is evidently most disadvantageous to students with auditory problems, attention deficits, and comprehension problems, moreover it is also unfavorable for students with fine audible range but cognitive impairments (Price et al, 1998). Awful Crum and Matkin (1976) stated their observation that almost all classrooms are objectionable for students with hearing disabilities. Graham and Fraser (1993) accounted that the distorted noise reception of signals in students with various sensory disorders makes it necessary for significantly raised concentration intensity for students to hear the voice of the teacher. McCollister, Larrabee, and Ellis (1994) made an inspection of the boundaries of sound in classrooms and stated that noise is ordinary, creating complexities for students to listen to the teachers verbal notes. Proofs surfaced that classrooms produce unpleasant learning conditions attributable to intensified levels of noise in the classroom (Blake, Field, Foster, Platt, & Wertz, 1991; Crandell, 1993; Flexer, Millin & Brown, 1990; Ray, Sarff, & Glassford, 1984). Conclusion Special education has centered on corrective proposals such as inclusion and accommodation, but still these proposals are still insufficient to the education of the special needs students. Accommodation proposals give attention to modifying the learning setting or the educational necessities. Arguments were raised on several proposals, incorporating matters that can be dealt with by the school management. Inclusion can be more freely put into practice as long as the school administration exercises utmost support to the inclusion policy. Furthermore, accommodations to the school building can create accessibility and functionality to the classroom settings. The implementation of various helpful tools and techniques, can offer accommodations, too (Price et al, 1998). The goal of inclusion is to permit the child with a disability to thrive in a regular classroom environment (Price et al, 1998). Every child deserves equal rights to education. Students with disabilities have equal chances with the non-disabled of proper knowledge and academic excellence in regular class settings. Mainstreaming positively impacts the school, community, teachers, parents, and students, whether disabled or non-disabled (Lieberman, 2006). Bibliography Blake, R. et al. (1991). “Effect of FM auditory trainers on attending behaviors of learning disabled children.” Language, Speech and Hearing Services in School. 22, 111 -114. Cooper, K. et al. (2002). “Trends in Working with Special Needs Students.” The Agricultural Education Magazine. 75, 3, 6-7. Crandell, C.C. (1993). “Speech recognition in noise by children with minimal degrees of sensorineural hearing loss.” Ear and Hearing.14, 3, 210-216. Crum, M. & Matkin, N. (1976). “Room acoustics: The forgotten variable? Language Speech.” Hearing Services Schools. 7, 106 - 110. Flexer, C. et al (1990). “Children with developmental disabilities: The effects of sound field amplification in word identification.” Language Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools. 21, 177-182. Graham, J. & Fraser, B. (1993). “Does the Acoustic Environment make a difference to children with multi-sensory impairments?” British Journal of Special Education. 19, 3, 2- 3, 114-115. Hasselbring, T.S.(1994). “Using media for developing mental models and anchoring instruction.” American Annals of the Deaf. 139, 36- 44. Lieberman, S. (2006). Mainstreaming Special Education Students. Retrieved 5 December 2009 from: http://ematusov.soe.udel.edu/final.paper.pub/_pwfsfp/000000f8.htm McCollister, F.P. et al. (1994). “Noise in classrooms: A hindrance to the teaching/learning process.” The Alabama Council for Exceptional Children Journal. 11, 2, 24 - 27. Price, B.J. et al. (1998). Collaborative Teaching: Special Education for Inclusive classrooms. Parrot Publishing: Kansas City, Mo. Ray, H.Sarff, L.S., & Glassford, F.E. (1984). “Sound field amplification: An innovative educational intervention for mainstreamed learning disabled students.” The Directive Teacher. 6, 18-20. Special Needs Opportunity Windows - SNOW (2002). Basic organization and classroom routines. University of Toronto. Retrieved 5 December 2009 from: http://snow.utoronto.ca/best/ accommodate/basic.html Read More