Special Education: Integration and Adaptation
Special Education
A kind of educational system that delivers services at different levels, both in regular schools and special education, for students with special educational needs (SEN).
Students with SEN
These students require different teaching resources to advance their learning. We can distinguish between those who present transitional difficulties and those with permanent disabilities.
Permanent Disabilities:
- Down syndrome
- Autism
- Blindness
- Deafness
Transitional Difficulties:
- Dyscalculia
- Dysgraphia
- Attention deficit
Objectives of Special Education
To ensure the right to education, equal opportunities, and non-discrimination for people with SEN.
Specific Objectives:
- Promote educational conceptions, attitudes, and pedagogical practices that generate conditions at different levels and modalities of the education system.
- Ensure that people with SEN can access, progress, and graduate with the necessary skills.
- Strengthen technical equipment and multi-disciplinary education.
Types of Education
Segregated Education
Students with disabilities are separated from students without disabilities.
Integration
A movement originating from social dislocation in the 1960s and 1970s. Homogeneous grouping does not favor students with disabilities, nor the rest of the students, nor segregated education.
Normalization Principle
Raised by Bank Mikkelsen in 1959, it relates to the need for a person with an impairment to have a life as close as possible to that of other citizens, with similar opportunities in different spheres of life.
School Integration
Grouping students with diverse needs in the same educational context.
Deficiency and Disability
Deficiency
According to the WHO in 1983, any loss or abnormality of a physiological, anatomical, or psychological structure.
Disability
The absence, due to a deficiency, of the ability to perform an activity within normal parameters.
Types of Disabilities
Visual Deficits
Students with impairments in their visual perception, in varying degrees and due to different etiologies, have quantitative and qualitative limitations.
Mental Disabilities
Students whose intellectual performance is equal to or less than 70 IQ points.
Auditory Disabilities
Impairment in auditory perception in varying degrees, those who have a hearing loss equal to or greater than 40 decibels.
Physical Disabilities
Failure in the effector mechanism that produces alterations in the nervous system.
Access to Curriculum Elements
Modifications necessary at the level of human resources and adaptation of curriculum materials to respond to SEN in a common classroom context.
Educational Resources:
- Support – Human Resources
- Materials
Curriculum Adaptations:
- All students have basic needs tailored to their level.
- NEC: related to the need to have a formal curriculum.
- The official curriculum has the ability to stretch, from the real capacity that modifies the curriculum to achieve learning according to the student’s level.
Modifications:
- The means according to the curriculum
- Individual curricular adjustments
- Adjustments in the educational context and in the organization of the classroom (didactic materials)
- Specialist support services
Professional Role in Curriculum Adaptation
To know the student’s educational needs and then adapt the curriculum to provide efficient education.
Adequate Considerations:
- Keep in mind the official curriculum, PEI, socio-reality, and characteristics of individual students.
Curriculum Adaptation Levels
Level 1: PEI
Follows the national curriculum and characteristics of the school.
Level 2: Teaching Methodology
Addresses the questions of how to teach, when to teach, and what to evaluate.
Level 3: Individualized Curriculum
Individualization of teaching strategies geared towards students who are below average.
Attention Deficits
Characteristics of temperament, behavior, cognitive and affective domains, hyperactivity and impulsiveness, often seen in males, aggressive behaviors.
Teaching Strategies:
- Group work
- Assess the child’s activities
- Student-teacher relationship
- Meet student achievement
- Keep busy
Produce changes in concentration and attention, and occur in children of normal intelligence. May have consequences for school performance, personality, and social integration.
SDA
Not immediately detectable, requires more attention from professionals, medical treatment.
SDAH
Channeling energy, known related behavior problem, medical treatment.
Child Abuse
Types of Maltreatment:
- Physical
- Psychological
- Sexual
- Neglect
The Educator
Should receive attention as a unique person.
Must Be:
- Counselor
- Observer
- Model
- Partner
Must Achieve:
- Trust
- Security
- Serve as a relief from fear
- Opportunity for success