Special Needs Education

national | health / disability issues | opinion/analysis Wednesday December 08, 2004 20:11 by Sean Crudden - impero sean at impero dot iol dot ie Jenkinstown, Dundalk, Co Louth. 087 9739945

Diverse Needs Require Diverse Provision

Disability in general covers the broad spectrums of sensory, physical, learning and mental/emotional disability. Meeting the special educational needs of children (and adults) with a disability poses a searching challenge to educators in this country. Meeting that challenge may carry many rewards for everyone involved in the educational and training spheres.

Sean Crudden pictured at the pier in Omeath with Warrenpoint in the background.

A conference entitled "Student Journeys: The Special Education Routes" was held in O’Reilly Hall in UCD on Monday and Tuesday 6 & 7 December 2004. It was organised by the National Disability Authority. The legal background, to the conference and the issue, is the "Education for People with Special Educational Needs Act (2004)" and, perhaps to a lesser extent the "Disabilities Bill" which is currently under discussion within and without the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The general idea emerging, and backed by the full weight of the law, is summed up in two words - "inclusion" and "mainstreaming." It seems that all (except, possibly, in the case of low-frequency, profound disability) special education provision will take place in mainstream schools in the future.

There is repeated and strong emphasis on "assessment of need" as a basis for all provision of disability services.

I notice elsewhere that the proportion of early school leavers is 18.5% for boys in the year 2002. So mainstream second level schools are in a profound way "non-inclusive" themselves. In spite of initiatives like Transition Year Option, the Leaving Certificate Vocational Program, the Leaving Certificate Applied, etc., the second level system is a "one-size-fits-all" setup. Streaming and selection already fragment the school population and demoralise many. Indeed, judging by recent deliberations of the TUI and statements from that union’s hierarchy, teacher dissatisfaction with the "discipline" problem may, in time, lead to a widening of the definition of disability to include a lot of students who are presently too much of a challenge or obstruction for teachers. So I wonder if mainstreaming will guarantee inclusion for all disabled students in the way the ideologues intend? Of course the necessity to provide in a meaningful way for disabled students may prompt more, and more necessary thinking about the aims and methodologies of schools and lead to a more human and more tailored provision for each and every student safeguarding at the same time equality and proper socialisation.

Assessment by its very nature can often be limiting and pessimistic. It is a moot question whether assessment would be more open and optimistic coming from the parent, the teacher, the psychologist, the psychiatrist or the disabled person herself.

The education system at second and tertiary level is already assessment ridden and it shows. There is no evidence of enhanced achievement and joie-de-vivre is almost dead in a student population given more to binge drinking and excess that to anything else.

An interesting figure to emerge at the conference is that 80% of people who are disabled suffer from an acquired disability. Only 20% of disabled people were born with their disability.