Mylene, a 13-year-old first year high school student, cannot finish any seatwork despite the extra time given by the teacher.
Six-year-old Harry cannot keep still and prefers to be alone.
Gloria is 20 years old but has features unlike her siblings—flat face, upward slanting eye creases, small ears.
Gino is three but can read and write short sentences and is quite adept at painting and drawing.
Objectives
After going through this module you will be able to:
1. Explain the important features of education for special learners;
2. Explain the significance of indigenization and
using a pair of crutches; he had poliomyelitis when he was five years old.
These are but a few examples of individuals with special needs and who, if they lived many years ago, would have been kept inside the house by parents who feared that they would cause embarrassment and shame to the family. These individuals would have been considered abnormal since they do not exhibit behavior that society considered normal. In fact, in the 17th century, these “abnormal” individuals were classified only into two:
the idiots and the insane.
However, in the 18th century, sensory-impaired individuals, like the blind and deaf, were recognized as members of society and therefore should also be taught skills. With epidemics, wars, as well as the occurrence of disastrous natural calamities, serious ailments and injuries produced individuals with disabilities, prompting scientists to do in-depth studies and tests on how they could be taught and therefore contribute still to society. Thus teaching procedures and instructional materials were developed especially for this group of people.
There were many pioneers who studied and developed this field. Some names that have made significant contributions are the following:
Maria Montessori who started the use of task analysis and manipula-tive materials
Samuel Holm who founded the school for the blind
Francis Dalton who proved through an experiment that a genius is solely the result of hereditary influences
Alexander Graham Bell who invented the hearing aid
Thomas Gallaudet who proposed a formal system for Special Educa-tion
Let us now look at more recent developments in this field.
According to a report (2002), Special Education in the Philippines began in 1907 when interest in exceptional and special cases of individuals started. After some years, institutions were established to assist persons with disabilities. Some of these institutions were The Jose Fabella Memo-rial School (1920), The National Orthopedic Hospital of the Crippled (1945) and the Elsie Gaches Village (1953). Not long after, the Department of Education recognized the need to include Special Education as a special concern. In 1965, the College of Education of the University of the Philippines began offering Special Education subjects and in 1978 as a major area of specialization in the undergraduate program. Other teacher
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demand for special education teachers. As a separate area of specializa-tion, special education has developed extensively over the years.
Changes in the field of education parallel larger changes in society. Most important is the realization that individuals with special needs are equally important in society and need intervention programs. Legislative measures have been crafted and enacted that have made communities more aware of the needs of these individuals. Moreover, more disabilities and/or impairments have been scientifically described as well as treated or alleviated, due to improvement of medical knowledge.
The vocabulary of special education has gone through some major changes too, because words used to label or identify persons with special needs should not convey messages and values which may have a stigmatizing effect on them. Hence, the term handicap has been replaced by disability, or impairment.
Let’s now look at the definitions of some key terms in the field of special education. What follows is just a broad outline and is not a complete listing. The definitions are instructive but not definitive.
Special Education: a specially designed instruction to meet the unique needs of a child
Learning Disability: a disorder in one or more of the basic psychologi-cal processes involved in understanding or using spoken or written language that results to inability to listen, think, speak, read, write or do mathematical calculations
Hearing Impairments: inability to process linguistic information through hearing
Giftedness: cognitive superiority, creativity and motivation that set the individual apart from the majority of other individuals of the same age
Mental Retardation (MR): refers to sub-normal intellectual functioning;
it is not a disease
Autism Spectrum Disorder: a complex developmental disability and neurological disorder affecting the normal development and function-ing of the brain in the areas of social interaction and communication skills
Attention Deficit-Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD): a neurologically-based developmental disability manifested by inattentiveness, impulsiveness and hyperactivity
Cerebral Palsy: a neurological disorder that causes permanent dis-orders of movement and position
Down syndrome: a developmental disorder manifested in the physical appearance of the individual as well as delayed development in the social, emotional and intellectual areas;
Activity 7-1
What is your opinion regarding the mainstreaming of students with special needs, that is, including those with visual or hearing impairment in regular classes?
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Activity 7-2
Observe a special education class and note the features that make the class different from the typical classes you’re familiar with.