Inclusion and Special Educational Needs - Essay Example

Inclusion and Special Educational Needs (Including Challenging Behaviour) Introduction: Not only in education, also in day to day life, the matters of central importance are to communicate and interact. If a child or a young person experiences significant difficulties in these two areas of vital importance, there must be suitable educational provision to this end in order to ensure that the student with such needs makes the best possible progress. While this points to a specially designed and delivered education to these people, it must be remembered that education is fundamentally concerned with realising the potential of every child to its fullest extent. This is better said than done, since in practice, there have been progressively increasing social diversities (DfES, 2001, 1-33). This poses a challenge on the practitioners as well as the state, since they are committed to provide an appropriate education for all. It is well known that factors such as ethnicity, disability and material deprivation are associated with inequality, social exclusion and the risk of low educational attainment, due to diversity of the condition and the candidates. By diversity, it is not only meant the different grades of disabilities or challenging behaviours in these people, it also reflects divergent cultural values and norms. To promote and enforce equal access to education, the current trend is to acknowledge the rights of inclusion of these people. Following lots of argument, now most agree inclusion describes a process where the pupil with special needs may be educated in an inclusive school build within the mainframe of the ordinary schools, in order to gradually accept them in the mainstream (Croll and Moses, 2000, 1-12). The nature of provision for special educational needs has changed drastically over the last few years following the Warnock Report and the 1981 Education Act. Ideally, all education, special or ordinary should look at implementation of principles of social justice in education, as deployment of "what is good for the common interest where that is taken to include the good of each and good for all" (Griffiths, 1998, 95 in Quicke, 2007, 2-15). This implies improvement of education of all and specially of those with special needs. This should, therefore, follow certain principles guided by the code for practitioners (QCA/DfEE, 2001). In a broader sense, the inequality in education of those identified to have special education needs, can only be demolished by inclusion (DfES, 2001, 1-13) due the fact that all children, special or ordinary, have the rights to experience relationship with others having different identities, backgrounds, interests, and achievements, since otherwise, education for all is impoverished (Farrell, 2001, 3-9). Department of Health has recently published a White Paper for people with learning disabilities in 2001, representing a very bright outlook for these people, but still this area needs improvement since may are excluded from the mainstream through prejudice, bullying, insensitive treatment, and discrimination (Department of Health, 2001, 1-10). Classification of the children with special education needs based on handicaps was not realistic since it ignored individual differences, social backgrounds and developmental stages, and the dangers of labelling and stigmatizing were inherent in it (Aylott, 2001, 512). This expressed the Governments intentions in this process seeking to provide a central and strategic policy about how the services for the people with needs for special education will be directed, implemented, and evaluated, and need-based special education involving principles of inclusion can be implemented (Lewis and Norwich, 2001). This also articulated future service configurations based on four fundamental principles of rights, independence, choice, and inclusions (Department of Education and Science, 1978). Inclusion in education is defined as the process of enhancing the participation of children and young people in the cultures, curriculums, and communities of the local schools and at the same time reducing their exclusion from the same, only through practices in education that can overcome barriers to access and participation in delivered education. This process must acknowledge the diversity of needs of all students. The White Paper identifies many barriers that such children and their families face in fully participating in their communities, while promoting the benefits of educational opportunities, good health, and social care. Constructive and sustainable relationships between pupils with special educational needs and their peers involve mutual perceptions of shared experiences that may require the provision of well-planned collaborative learning activities. The Green Paper states, ‘By inclusion, we mean not only that pupils with SEN should, where possible, receive their education in a mainstream school, but also that they should join in fully with their peers in the curriculum’ (DfEE, 1997, 44). Special Educational Needs Code of Practice (DfES, 2001, 57-79) indicates that, ‘Most children with special educational needs have strengths and difficulties in one, some or all of the areas of speech, language and communication.’ This encompasses the needs of children and young people with speech and language delay, impairments or disorders; specific learning difficulties; autistic spectrum disorders; sensory impairment, such as, hearing impairment and physical impairment, any or some of which will cause general learning difficulties of any severity and grade. According to the Code, if the child despite receiving appropriate educational experiences continues to demonstrate communication and/or interaction difficulties, would need specific individual interventions in order to access learning through individualised programme and/or concentrated support. Under the 1981 Act, a child has special educational needs if he or she has learning difficulties which are significantly greater than those experienced by the majority of children of the same age or if they have a disability that prevents or hinders them from making use of the educational facilities generally available to age peers. This act makes a critical distinction within the group characterised in this way. Some children will be the direct responsibility of the local education authority in the sense that they have ‘special educational needs which call for the local education authority to determine the special provision that should be made for them’ (Department for Education and Skills, 2001, 67-132). This act could be viewed as an important piece of legislation in favour of inclusive practices, since it requires that children with special educational needs should be educated in regular schools, subject to account being taken of the wishes of their parents and of their conditions (Department of Education and Science, 1981). From this point of view, inclusion does not denote a special placement, rather an empowerment of belonging to and having full membership of a regular classroom in a regular school and its community (Special Children, 2002, 20-25). The Education Reform Act 1988 introduced major changes to state education in England and Wales. This has been criticised to have near-total exclusion of pupils with special education needs, and following amendments, even in the current version, major anxieties about the consequences for special educational provision persist (Department of Education and Science, 1981). Despite that, this act entitles pupils to a broad curriculum. The potential benefits from this act are a shared curricular framework which makes it more feasible for pupils of different abilities to work alongside each other; a shared curricular language; and the guarantee of a broad curriculum. While inclusion is an important aspect for high standards for all learners, the level of government activism in developing national SEN policy has been really extraordinary. Following the Green Paper, the Government issued a ‘Programme for Action’ in 1998. In 1999, the Disability Rights Task Force issued a report calling for the right to a place in a mainstream school for all children, including those with statements of special educational needs (Department for Education and Skills, 2001a). From January 2002, new anti-discrimination legislation, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 (SENDA), marks another step on delivering this promise (Disability Rights Commission, 2002). A culmination of all these have led to the new statutory guidance in DfES 2001, and that lays down some principles on the premise that inclusion is a process where institutions and authorities would develop their cultures, policies, and practices to include people, so with right training, strategies, and support, almost all children with special educational needs can be successfully included in mainstream education. (Department for Education and Skills, 2004a). This would not only involve teaching, there must be provision for talking together, working jointly, training each other and evaluating the partnership. Each collaborator agency and its representatives must feel secure and confident in working with others (Department for Education and Skills, 2005b). Current views on education, particularly in relation to pedagogy emphasise the active role of the learner and the ways of interaction between the ‘teachers’ and ‘learners’. The process of development is intimately linked to the influences of growth and maturation and to factors external to the child. In a developing child, all aspects of development are closely associated and interlinked. The different environments make varied demands upon the growing child and either support or hinder his or her emerging skills, knowledge and understanding. By behaviour, the educationists mean that a child’s behaviour results from his or her social and emotional development, and this is indicated by his or her treatment to others; consideration of self; ability to conform, contribute, and to formation of rules; and conduct in a range of social situations (Scott, 1998, 202-206). The ecosystem approach to behavioural development offers new ways of conceptualising behaviour problems in schools, which are based on the view that human behaviour is developed and maintained through interactional processes. It is to be noted that a behaviour problem is defined by others in the society. Children who have special needs are more predisposed to develop challenging behaviour pattern. Psychologists have enumerated that the very factors that produce special needs may lead to difficulties in impulse control, low tolerance for frustration, extreme hyperirritability, and as mentioned lack of appropriate communication skills. Along with arrangement of inclusive education, for these children, it may be necessary to have some interventions due to persistence of severe behaviour problems. Usually a behaviour intervention plan modifies the behaviour with time. Many of these children may have some coexistent neurological disorder. Children with autism often engage themselves in disruptive behaviour such an temper tantrums or running away. They are sometimes extremely defensive to tactile stimuli. Apart from self-stimulatory behaviour, these children have difficulty coping with unpredictable or unfamiliar environments. Many children with special educational needs will have similar problems (McIntosh et al., 2008, 131-147). This sends a message to the educators in special schools or ordinary schools, that to be able to control challenging behaviour, the strategy should be to help create a predictable and organized environment. Limited communication is the basic problems of these children who need special education, and disruptive behaviour pattern is a means to control environment and communicate wants and needs. A strategy to assist these children would to to help them learn skills of communication through other means such as words, signs, gestures, and pictures would reduce the behaviour problems. Therefore, to deal with behaviour problems in the schools, teachers must be aware of the contribution of behaviour in their developmental process. Human behaviour is essentially interactional (Waschbusch, Pelham, Jr., Massetti, 2005, 313-322). Human beings are neither wholly free, in an existential sense, to behave as they choose, nor is their behaviour wholly determined by environmental forces. Human beings exist as strands in a social web that can be likened to a biological ecosystem. This means that behaviour and development are both constrained by and a constraining force upon the behaviour and development of other organisms, interaction with whom is essential for fulfillment of survival needs (Howley, Preece and Arnold, 2001, 41-52). Human behaviour is the product of ongoing interaction between environmental influences and internal motivations which derive from prior social experience. Pupils with behavioural, emotional and social difficulties are by definition likely to be less well developed in their emotional and social development and their behaviour may be disruptive or otherwise inappropriate (Lewis, 2004, 3-9). These should also be understood in terms of standards of achievement in the broad sense of emotional, behavioural and social development and attitudes to learning. For example, pupils with autism or ADHD may have reduced attention and impulsivity. Such behaviour indicating reduced attention and impulsivity may be taken as indicating, in developmental or achievement terms, lower levels of attention than is expected in a child of the same age. Therefore, following interventions designed for such purpose, there will be improvements in personal, emotional and social development and behaviour, although concentrating on development is not the only way to address the special needs. However, there is a contribution that can be made educationally and this lies in the area of teaching, learning and creating good role models of personal and social development and behaviour (Amatea, 1988, 174-183). Conclusion: In conclusion, educating children and the young still remains a challenge despite considerable progress in understanding the needs of those who are special. Legislations and Governmental agencies have come up with policies and regulations that tend to implement inclusive education for reasons described elsewhere in this essay. These summarily indicate that inclusion is the way with an inclination to scientific understanding of the reasons of these children with special needs and their diversity that may lead to inequalities. The current approach tend to change the ordinary system rather than forcing a change in those who have special needs through a teamwork and partnership approach, where the young and their families are active partners. Reference List Amatea, E. (1988) Brief systemic interventions with school behavior problems: a case of temper tantrums, Psychology in the Schools, 25, pp. 174–183. Aylott, J., (2001). The New Learning Disabilities White Paper. Did it forget something? British Journal of Nursing. 10(8). 512 Croll, P. and Moses, D. (2000) ‘Ideologies and Utopias: education professionals’ views of inclusion’, European Journal of Special Needs Education, 15 (1) 1–12. Department of Education and Science, (1978). Special Educational Needs (The Warnock Report), London: HMSO. Department of Education and Science, (1981). The Education Act of 1981, London: HMSO. Department for Education and Skills, (2001) Special Educational Needs Code of Practice, London, DfES, 1-217 . Department for Education and Skills, (2001) Inclusive Schooling. London: DfES, 1-33. Department for Education and Skills, (2001) The Special Educational Needs and Disability Act. London: The Stationery Office 1-13. Department for Education and Skills (2001a) Special Educational Needs and Disability Act. Nottingham: DfES Publications. Department for Education and Skills (2004a) Removing Barriers to Achievement: The Government’s Strategy for SEN. Nottingham: DfES Publications. Department for Education and Skills (2005b) Education Improvement Partnerships: Local Collaboration for School Improvement and Better Service Delivery. Nottingham: DfES Publications. Department of Health, (2001). Valuing People: A New strategy for Learning disability For the 21st Century, London. Disability Rights Commission (2002) Code of Practice for Schools: Disability Discrimination Act 1995, Part 4. London: Disability Rights Commission. Farrell, P. (2001) ‘Special education in the last twenty years: have things really got better?’, British Journal of Special Education 28 (1) 3–9. Howley, M., Preece, D. and Arnold, T. (2001) ‘Multidisciplinary use of “Structured Teaching” to promote consistency of approach for children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder’, Educational and Child Psychology, 18 (2) 41–52. Lewis, A. and Norwich, B. (2001) ‘A critical review of systematic evidence concerning distinctive pedagogies for pupils with difficulties in learning’, Journal of Research in Special Education, 1 (1) online @ www.nasen.uk.com/ejournal/. Lewis, A. (2004) ‘And when did you last see your father? Exploring the views of children with learning difficulties/disabilities’, British Journal of Special Education 31 (1): 3–9. McIntosh, K., Horner, RH., Chard, DJ., Dickey, CR., and Braun, DH., (2008). Reading Skills and Function of Problem Behavior in Typical School Settings. Journal of Special Education; 42: 131 - 147. QCA/DfEE (2001) General Guidelines: Planning, Teaching and Assessing the Curriculum for Pupils with Learning Difficulties. London: Qualifications and Curriculum Authority. Quicke, J., (2007). nclusion and Psychological Intervention in Schools: A Critical Autoethnography. Springer, 2007, 2-15 Scott, S., (1998). Fortnightly review: Aggressive behaviour in childhood. BMJ; 316: 202 - 206. Special Children (2002) Practice Makes Perfect: The Revised SEN Code of Practice Special Children, January 2002, pp. 20–5. Waschbusch, DA., Pelham, Jr., WE., Massetti, G., (2005). Northern Partners in Action for Children and Youth The Behavior Education Support and Treatment (BEST) School Intervention Program: Pilot Project Data Examining Schoolwide, Targeted-School, and Targeted-Home Approaches. J Atten Disord; 9: 313 - 322. Read More