This chapter will provide the discussion of relevant literature concerning the issues on parents’ perspective about special education provision. Special Education is known to be an educational alternative which gives attention on the teaching of students having academic, health, physical or behavioural needs that cannot sufficiently be met utilising traditional or conventional educational programs or approaches. Special education has been recognised by many as an important development of education since it provides adequate a suitable educational approach to meet the needs of the so-called special children (Stough & Palmer, 2004).
The independent variables of interest have ranged from the curriculum and methods to the competencies, or preparation, of teachers and the location of the service. The dependent variables have also varied widely and included academic achievement and behavior. Notwithstanding significant gains in developing a knowledge base of empirically validated practices, measurement problems, and, because of ethical issues, constraints on implementing experimental designs have kept the issues of “best practices” a much debated topic.
Special education has become increasingly complex over the past thirty years. Schools have become more diverse, parents have become more involved, accountability for the academic gains of students has increased, and the philosophy of service delivery has become a larger policy issue.
Parents Perspective on Special Education
As mentioned, the context of special education has encountered different issues in the perspective of the parents. If there are people who would become more conscious about the special education provisions, this would be the parents of the children. Parents avail the services of special education to ensure that their children will be able to adjust in the environment and to ensure that adequate or enough knowledge are being provided. With these, parents become more critical on identifying different issues concerning the quality of services given in a special education. There are many issues that parents need to be certain for the sake of their children. Such issues will be discussed below.
In the study conducted by the NYS Commission on Quality Care (1990), they concluded that parental satisfaction about their child’s education program depends greatly on the type of disability and the needs of the children. About 75% of parents of students with physical disabilities were satisfied on the service while 57% of parents of children with learning disabilities indicated with children’s programs. In this study, the most typical parental concerns affecting satisfaction includes lack of personal attention/education; inadequate teacher training, and inadequate time spent by handicapped children with non-handicapped children.
One of the issues concerning this is the lack of fully certified and adequately trained special education instructors or teachers, which has been regarded as severe and pervasive, affects the quality of education services that special students receive. Over the years, researchers have conducted a study to investigate the magnitude of the shortage issue for certified and efficient special educational teachers and the factors that can be attributed to this case.
A number of proposals touched on the issues relevant to the training of teachers to teach students having special needs, sometimes in the concept of determining units of study which should be included in teacher training courses. Such perspective expressed that the extent in which the teacher training courses prepared the trainees to know the whole idea of teaching students with special needs and determine the respond appropriate with these students are insufficient.
In this manner, the need for enhanced teacher training arises from the restrictions of many current teacher training programs. In a study conducted by Trump and Hange (1996), 48 American private and public instructions of higher education teachers were surveyed to identify the extent in which pre-service general training teachers has been able to received instruction or trainings relevant to inclusion of students with special needs. The survey shows that many of these institutions had failed in preparing regular educators for the challenges of inclusion and joint teaching environments. In a similar study conducted in rural British Columbia, it was concluded that both the in-service and pre-service education had insufficiently prepared the teachers for the realities of having students with special needs (Bandy & Boyer, 1994).
The inclusion of students with significant disabilities in the state and local standards-based education reform initiatives is good in improving the current practices within the entire education system and in rectifying the problem about the exclusion of students with disabilities. However, to attain a unified system of educational accountability, legislators and policymakers must have full recognition on the individual and intensive needs of children with significant disabilities; and resolve the problems associated with alternate assessment. This consideration will also make the parents become more satisfied with what their children received in special education services (Glass, 2004).
Aside from the inadequate training, lack of resources and support is also one of the issues perceived by the parents to the current special education provision. The parents are seeking the help of special education services because they think that the government has enough funding to meet the needs of their children. However, some institutions do not have adequate funding support the needs of the special education services and the special needs of the children. With this the satisfaction of the parents are being affected.
Other issues perceived by the parents and other critics of special education are the issue of inclusion at secondary level. Inclusive classrooms are one of the ways in which educational interventions are delivered to students with special needs in Europe. European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (2003) stated that behaviour; social and/or emotional problems are biggest challenge within the area of inclusion of pupils with special education needs. Furthermore, character approach to students with Special Educational Needs is rejected in favour of a more environment-interactive approach to SEN.
Furthermore, handling diversity is the key issue at the classroom level. When dealing with differences in the classroom, class teachers need an extra pair of hands or extra support from either colleagues (or special education teachers) or other professionals. Basically, it leads to the challenges of co-teaching (classroom level), team teaching and the need for good co-operation between teachers, on the school level and co-ordination with professionals from other support services (EADSNE, 2003). However, with lack of classroom management and comprehensive instructions offered by some of the institutions offering special education services, the parents are concerned that this will cause a bigger conflict.
Another issue to be given emphasis is maltreatment of teachers towards children with special needs of with disabilities (Sobsey, 2002). Sometimes, because of lack of training and preparation in handling students with special needs, most teachers could not be able to do their job effectively. Oftentimes, the teachers are abusing children with disabilities physically, verbally, emotionally and psychologically. These abuses affect both parents and children and may have a tendency that the parents will not allow their children to avail special education services.
Further, social integration or is also an issue for parents. Social integration issue refers to the lack of time spent by disabled children with other peers. As it was observed by parents, simply placing children in the same classroom or moving a child from institution to home did not ensure positive interactions between handicapped children and their peers (Allen, Benning, Drummond, 1972; Devoney, Guralnick, & Rubin, 1974). Neither did social integration, in itself, foster the goals of cognitive and social growth on the part of the disabled children (Guralnick, 1978). Hence, for parents, if this will continue, the purpose of bringing their child to a special education institution will not be met.
In this manner, curricular or programmatic approaches to fostering social integration include, most importantly, a careful choice of the context or activities in which integration occurs. Involving a small number of disabled and non-disabled children in special projects or recreational activities such as planning a carnival or playing on a bowling team is one effective strategy for fostering social interaction and positive attitudes of non-handicapped children toward disabled peers (Aloia, Beaver, & Pettus, 1978; Chennault, 1967; Johnson et al, 1983; Rucker & Vincenzo, 1970; Stainbeck, Stainbeck, & Jaben, 1981). The development of such activities for use with severely handicapped and non-handicapped students is described by Brown and his colleague (1979).
An alternative approach is to design activities in which non- handicapped children are given a special invitation to become involved in activities with handicapped children in the capacity of teacher helpers (McHale, 1983; Poorman, 1980). Other programmatic considerations for fostering social integration include the nature of the classroom’s physical layout and equipment (Hoben, 1980), and encouragement and reinforcement by adults (Guralnick, 1978; Hoben, 1980).
Another problem is with regards to curriculum standardisation. The promotion of curriculum standardization is a crucial component to the current education reform movement. This point of view presents problems. According to McIntyre, highlighting curriculum standardisation creates problem for special education because it hampers individualization in special classes (Glass, 2004). This will also affect the satisfaction of parents of those special children. For the parents, there is a tendency that their children would not be able to cope with such standardisation.
Ysseldyke et al. (1994) also stresses that the successful participation of students with cognitive disabilities depends on states developing outcomes, which are wide-ranging and broad enough to be significant for the students. Furthermore, McDonnell, et al. (1997) believes that enough attention should be given to the specific curricular needs of students with cognitive disabilities. The successful participation of students with disabilities in the standards-based reform is determined based on the degree to which a set of content standards is appropriate to their valued educational outcomes and consistent with proven instructional practices.
Conclusion
Children’s education is practically made by parents using the viability and the quality of life as their basis. They send their kids to normal schools where boards and books are normal. They are expected to retain their everyday learning for progress. However, children with special education needs might receive very little education on classrooms and ordinary schools and might always be excluded from the class (Armstrong, 2004, p.39). Accordingly, every school that offers special education must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The said program involves parents, teachers and must have its own faculty staff to verify students’ unique needs. IEP is formulated for parents and teachers to discover the educational results and abilities of the child. In addition, the issues mentioned above should be given enough attention and provide effective solution so as to ensure that children with special needs as well as their parents will be satisfied for the special education services.
Reference
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