CHAPTER 3

WHAT IS SPECIAL EDUCATION?

Current literature define special education as:

•Individually planned
•Systematically implemented
•Carefully evaluated instruction
•Personal Sufficiency
•Future environment
Individually Planned Instruction

In the United States, the law on

Individuals with Disabilities Education
Act (IDEA) requires that an
individualized education program
(IEP) be developed and implemented
for every special education student
between ages 3 to 21.
 Basic Requirements of IDEA:

• (1) the child’s present level of performance,

academic achievement, social adaptation,
prevocational and vocational skills, psychomotor
skills and self-help skills;
• (2) annual goals describing the educational
performance to be achieved by the end of each
school year;
• (3) short-term instructional objectives presented
measurable, intermediate steps between the
present level of educational performance and the
annual goals;

• (4) specific educational services, and;

• (5) needed transition services from age 16 or

earlier before the student leaves the school setting
 Systematically Implemented and Evaluated
Instruction

•Educational services
•Curriculum goals
•Competencies and skills
•Educational approaches
•Strategies and procedure
 Personal Sufficiency

• Child become independent from the

assistance of adults in personal
maintenance and development,
homemaking, community life, vocational and
leisure activities and travel.
 The Present Environment

• It refers to the current conditions in the life of the

child with a disability.

The Future Environment

• Forecast of how the child with a disability can move
on to the next level of education, from elementary to
college, vocational program and finally to the
workplace where he/she gainfully employed.
 WHO ARE EXCEPTIONAL
CHILDREN or CHILDREN and
YOUTH with SPECIAL NEEDS?
There are four points of view about special
education (Heward,2003).

1. Special education is a legislatively governed

enterprise.
2. Special education is a part of the country’s
educational system.
3. Special education is teaching children with special
needs in the least restrictive environment.
4. Special education is purposeful intervention.
 Special education is a legislatively governed
enterprise.

This point of view is expressed in the legal bases

of special education that are discussed in
Chapter 1. Article IV, Section 1 and Section 5,
Article XIII, Section 11 of the 1987 Philippine
Constitution gurantee that the State shall protect
and promote the rights of all citizens to quality to
education at all levels and shall take appropriate
steps to make such education available to all.
R.A. 7277 – The Magna Carta for Disabled Persons – provides
for the rehabilitation, self-development and self reliance of
disabled persons and their integration into mainstream society.

The Philippine Policies and Guidelines for Special Education

provides that every child with special needs has a right to an
educational program that is suitable to his/her needs.
Special education is a part of the country’s educational
system.
Special education is a part of the department of education’s
basic education program. With its modest historical
beginning in 1907, special education is now a major part of
the basic education program in elementary and secondary
schools.

The government continues to grant scholarships to deserving

school administrators and teachers to pursue the graduate
degrees at the Philippine Normal University and the University
of the Philippines.
Special education is teaching children with special
needs in the least restrictive environment.

Teaching, is what special education is all

about. From this perspective, special
eduction is defined in terms of the who,
what, how and where of its implementation.
WHO: The exceptional children or the children and
youth with special education needs are the most
important persons in special education.

WHAT: Every exceptional child need access to a

differentiated and modify curricular program to enable
him/her to learn competencies and the basic
education curriculum.
HOW: Children with mental retardation are thought
adaptive skills and basic academic content that are
suitable to their mental ability. Gifted children are
provided with enrichment activities and advance
content knowledge so that they can learn more that
what basic education curriculum offers.
WHERE: There are several educational
placements for this children. The most
preferred is inclusive education where they
are mainstream in regular classes.
 Special education is purposeful
intervention.

Preventive Intervention – designed to keep potential or

minor problems from becoming a disability.
Primary Intervention – designed to eliminate or
counteract risk factors so that the disability is not
required.
Secondary Intervention -
The Basic Terms in Special Education:
Developmental Disability, Impairment or
Disability, Handicap And At Risk
 Developmental disability refers to severe, chronic
disability of a child five years of age older that is.

• 1. attributable to a mental or physical impairment or a

combination of a mental and physical impairments;
• 2.manisfested before the person attain age 22;
• 3. likely to continue idefinitely;
• 4. results in substantial functional limitations in
three or more of the areas of major life activities
such as self-care, language, learning, mobility,
self-direction, capacity for independent living and
economic self-sufficiency; and
• 5. reflects the person’s need for a combination and
sequence of special care, treatment or the other
services that are lifelong or of extended duration
and are individually planned and
coordinated.(Beirne-Smith, 2002)
• Impairment or disability refers to reduced function
or loss of a specific part of the body or organ.
• Handicap refers to a problem a person with a
disability or impairment encounters when
interacting with people, events and the physical
aspects of the environment.
• At risk refers to a children who have greater
chances than the other children to develop a
disability.
 Categories of
Children at Risk
• Children with established risk are those with cerebral palsy,
Down syndrome, and other conditions that started during
pregnancy.
• Children with biological risk are those who are born
prematurely, underweight at birth, whose mother contracted
diabetes or rubella during the first trimester of pregnancy, or
who had bacterial infections like meningitis and HIV.
• Environmental risk results from extreme poverty, child abuse,
absence of adequate shelter and medical care, parental
substance abuse, limited opportunities for nurturance
simulation.
 What are the categories of
Exceptionalities Among Children
and Youth with Special Needs?
Mental Retardations

• Refers to substantial limitations in present

functioning. It is characterized by significantly sub-
average intellectual functioning, existing
concurrently with related limitations in two or more
of the following applicable adaptive skill areas:
communications, self-care, home living, social skill,
community use, self-direction, health and safety,
functional academics, leisure and work.
Gifted and Talent

• Refers to high performance in intellectual, creative or

artistic arears, unusual leadership capacity, and
excellences in specific academic field(US
Government).
Specific learning disability
• Means a disorder in one or more of the basic
psychological processes involved in
understanding or in using language, spoken or
written, which may manifest itself in an imperfect
ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell or
to do mathematical calculations.
 Emotional and behavior
disorders
• Means a condition exhibiting one or more of
the following characteristics over a long
period of time and to a marked degree,
which adversely affects educational
performance.
• (a) an ability to learn which cannot be explained by
intellectual, sensory, and health factors.
• (b) an inability to build or maintain satisfactory
interpersonal relationships with peers and teachers.
• (c) inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under
normal circumstances.
• (d) a general pervasive mood of unhappiness or
depression; or
• (e) a tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears
associated with personal or school problems. The term
includes children who are schizophrenic(or austic)
 Speech and language disorders
or communication disorders
• (a) the transmission and/or perception of
message is a fault;
• (b) the person is placed at an economic
disadvantage;
• (c) the person’s emotional growth;
• (d) the problem causes physical damage or
endangers the health of the person(Emerick and
Hayne, 1986)
 Hearing Impairment

• Is a generic term that includes hearing disabilities

ranging from wild to profound, thus encompassing
children who are deaf and those who are hard of
hearing.
• A person who is deaf is not able to use hearing to
understand speech, although he or she may perceive
some sounds. Even with a hearing aid, the hearing
loss is too great to allow a deaf person to understand
speech although the ears alone.
Severe disabilities

• Generally encompass individual with severe

and profound disabilities in intellectual,
physics and social functioning.
Is it correct to Use Disability Category Labels?
• The first point of view frowns o labeling these children as mentally
retarded, learning disabled, emotionally disturbed, socially
maladapted, blind, deaf, or physical disabled.
• Use of disability labels calls attention to the disability itself and
overlooks the more important and positive characteristics of the
person. These negative labels cause the “spread phenomenon” to
permeate the mind of the able-bodied persons.
• The disability becomes the major influence in the development of
preconceived ideas that tend to be negative, such as helplessness,
dependence and doom to a life of hopelessness.
• The second and less popular point of view is that it is necessary to use
workable disability category labels in order to describe the
exemptional learning needs for a systematic of special education
services.
Pros and possible benefits of Labeling
• Categories can relate diagnosis to specific types of education and
treatment.
• Labeling may lead to “protective” response in which children are
more accepting of the atypical behavior by a peer with disabilities
than they would be if that same behavior were emitted by a child
without disabilities.
• Labeling helps professionals communicate with one another and
classify and asses research findings.
• Finding of special education program is often based on specific
categories of exceptionality.
• Labels enable disability;-specific advocacy groups to promote specific
programs and to spur legislative action.
• Labeling helps make exceptional children’s special need more visible
to the public