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The history of education for children with special needs in Ireland has been one of neglect and exclusion until there was a change in attitudes and policies. The government had no need for policies regarding education and care of children with additional needs because they were carried out by religious orders. Many children were sent away to hospitals, homes and even asylums. They were hidden away from society. There were three stages in relation to the education and care of children with additional needs.
The era of neglect and denial was when the government thought children with special needs didn’t need to be educated and were seen as a medical problem. The Medical Model of Disability thought that children with special needs were abnormal. The problem was seen to be with the person with special needs and this model focuses on the causes of the disability and would look for cures rather than accept the person.
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“The medical model of disability views disability as a ‘problem’ that belongs to the disabled individual. It is not seen as an issue to concern anyone other than the individual” (www.2.le.ac.uk, Assessed 07 March 2014).
The era of special schools was when a number of religious orders set up schools for children with special needs. The care and education was entirely up to the religious orders and the children would often board here rather than stay at home with their families. These schools were later recognised by the state.
The government now believed children with special needs needed to be educated but not with “normal” children. They believed that the children would interfere with the education of the other children and therefore could not be educated in the same schools.
The era of integration and inclusion began when the government introduced policies on education for children with special needs. They introduced these because of the decline in religion and religious orders. The state took over the care and education of children with additional needs. There was a demand for these children to be educated in schools alongside children who did not have special educational needs. This did happen but the children with special needs were taught in separate classrooms away from the other children. They were been educated but still not included. There are over 140 special schools in Ireland to date. These schools are designed for children who cannot be educated in mainstream schools. Some children may go to these schools for a period of time and then move into mainstream schools. Children with special needs are entitled to a free education until they reach eighteen years of age. They are entitled to help and support from resource teachers or special need assistants if the need it and to be educated in the same environment as every other child and to be treated equally.
The Education Act 1998 was the first piece of legislation that outlined the rights regarding education. This act is a general one but it provided the first legal definition of disability, the first legal definition of special educational needs and it defined what support services are. It outlines the roles and responsibilities of teachers, Board of Management, the Inspector and the Minister for Education. The Education Act 1998 says that all children including children with special needs are entitled to free education. Parents have the right to send their children to a school of their choice. All schools must respect beliefs, languages and traditions of all children. Schools have to have a plan in place to deal with any obstacles that may affect the education or welfare of a child with additional needs. All children have the right to be treated equally and should be included in all aspects of education despite their ability or disability. “This was the first piece of legislation passed since the foundation of the state that directly outlined the government’s rights and legal obligations regarding education” (Assisting Children with Special Needs, Assessed 08 March 2014: 10).
The Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 This Act was passed to ensure that all people with special educational needs can be educated in an inclusive environment where this is possible. They have the same rights to education as a person who does not have special educational needs. They have the right to the equipment they need in order to participate and continue with their education. The Board of Management needs to provide information to the parents and others relating to the education of the child. They need to ensure the progress of the child is monitored and reviewed regularly. To review the resources that are needed to help and provide education to children with special needs. They need to ensure that the needs of the child are being met and that a plan is put in place specifically for each child. “This Act was passed in June, 2004. The Act makes provision for the education of people with special educational needs, to provide that education wherever possible, in an inclusive environment with those who do not have such needs” (www.asti.ie, Accessed 10 March 2014)
ADHD is a common behavioural disorder that affects school age children and is more common in boys. Signs and Symptoms There are three major symptoms of ADHD inattentiveness, hyperactivity and impulsivity. Some signs of ADHD are been easily distracted, switching from one activity to another frequently and talking excessively.
The causes of ADHD are not known. There are a number of factors that may be linked to ADHD such as genetics, diet and family environments. Diagnosis The diagnosis should only be made if the problem has been assessed for more than six months and has happened in two or more places. This is because there are other conditions which are very similar to ADHD that have to be ruled out. “Attention deficit hyperactivity (ADHD) is a disorder that appears in early childhood. You may know it by the name attention deficit disorder, or ADD. ADD/ADHD makes it difficult for people to inhibit their spontaneous response – response that can involve everything to speech to attentiveness” (www.helpguide.org, Accessed 09 March 2014).
Cerebral Palsy occurs when the part of the brain that controls muscle tone and movement is damaged. The condition can result in someone just been clumsy or it can be more severe where the person cannot walk or move any part of their body.
Cerebral palsy may have the following signs and symptoms, lack of movement, difficulty walking, delays in speech development and trouble with swallowing.
There are no exact causes for cerebral palsy but it may be caused by brain damage before or during a child’s birth.
A diagnosis for cerebral palsy will only be made after a child has been assessed and tests carried out. The tests will focus on the child’s movements and their muscle tone. Diagnosis for cerebral palsy can take a long time. “Cerebral palsy is a term used to refer to a group of complicated conditions that affect movement and posture because of damage to or failure in the development of the part of the brain that controls movement” (www.sess.ie, Accessed 10 March 2014).
Autism is a developmental disorder that affects the brain from functioning properly. Autism affects the way a person communicates and how they relate to other people.
Some signs and symptoms of autism are if a child does not respond to their name by the age of twelve months, have no words by sixteen months and does not point at objects to show interest by fourteen months. The child will avoid eye contact and will like to play alone frequently.
The exact cause of autism is unknown. Abnormalities in the brain, genetics and environmental toxins may be causes but this have not been proven.
A screening test to diagnoise autism must be based on the observation of communication, behaviour and development and compare them to children in the same age group. “Autism is a neurological condition in which a child is unable to relate to people and situations. It first emerges in early childhood, when the child is first developing social and interpersonal skills. It is a rare condition affecting approximately five people out of every 10,000” (www.irishhealth.com, Accessed 11 March 2014).
Dyslexia is a learning disorder which makes reading, writing and spelling more difficult. It is the most common learning difficulty among children.
The most common sign of dyslexia is getting letters and words jumbled up. Lack of self-esteem, bad behaviour and lack of interest in school related activities are symptoms of having dyslexia.
There is no real evidence to suggest what causes dyslexia but it may be caused by an impairment in the brain or it may be inherited.
Tests will be done on a child that is suspected of having dyslexia and will focus on how the child processes information, their language abilities and word recognition. “There was a time in Ireland when dyslexia was the disorder that dare not speak his name. The Dyslexia Association of Ireland. (DAI), established 40 years ago this year, had to change its name in the 1980s to the Association of Children and Adults with Learning Difficulties, so it would be taken seriously” (www.irishtimes.com, Accessed 11 March 2014).
FASD is mental and physical condition that results from alcohol exposure during pregnancy.
Some of the signs and symptoms of FASD may include having a small head, deformities of limbs, heart defects and vision or hearing difficulties.
The causes of FASD is when a mother drinks alcohol excessively during her pregnancy. Alcohol interferes with the oxygen getting to the developing brain.
FASD can only be diagnosed after a child is born. Doctors will access motor skills, facial features and heart problems.
HADD Ireland is a support group for people affected by attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). They offer a wide variety of services including courses for young people, courses for parents and support groups. In these courses they build skills, promote self-awareness and encourage problem solving. In the support groups they offer talks and workshops for parents that provide information and advice on ADHD. Cerebral Palsy Alliance is a support group that provides support and assistance for parents and carers of people who suffer from cerebral palsy. Each service is in place to help improve the quality of life and participation in everyday life. The services they provide include therapy and health services, counselling and respite care. They offer early intervention services and mentoring programmes for teenagers Irish Autism Action is an organisation that was formed to help sufferers of autism and their families. They offer a range of services including early detection programmes, education support, counselling, and home based support.
They also have a helpline that offers confidential information and support for people with autism. They provide information and advice to families upon a diagnosis been made. Dyslexia Association of Ireland (DAI) is a membership based organisation that educates people about dyslexia. They offer appropriate and effective support services for children and adults dealing with dyslexia. The services they provide are information services through phone, website or text, assessment services, specialist tuition for children through workshops or one on one tuition, training and education for parents, teachers and others. Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Ireland is a support group that was set up by a group of carers who have had contact with children who suffer from fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). They provide information to families, carers and individuals on any disability associated with FASD. Alcohol Awareness Week 2014 is one way in which they provide information and promote awareness about FASD.
Efforts involved in implementation of Special needs education in Uganda today have got challenges that are facing them. These challenges are Handling the problems of an inclusive classroom. The concept of having classrooms that contain both special needs students and students who are developing typically is becoming a popular one. This type of education poses new challenges for a special education teacher. For example, many students who have no disabilities are unaccustomed to dealing with those who do.
Teachers in these classes are charged with eliminating cruelty and insensitivity from among their students and ensuring that those with special needs are treated with respect. Professional Isolation. The nature of a special education teacher’s work is very different from that of traditional teachers; the result of this is that standard classroom teachers may not view them as colleagues. There may be a professional stigma attached to the work of teaching “slow” students. Special education teachers often work with smaller groups and may focus on skills rather than content, thereby leading to the perception that their work is easier or less important. Lack of support from parents.
Some parents of special needs children are disinterested in the welfare of their children and fail to provide them with adequate care. Alternatively, they may be overly protective. Both can be problematic for the child and for their teacher. Disinterested parents may have no involvement with their child’s education or interaction with their teachers, WHEREAS OVERPROTECTIVE PARENTS MAY HAVE UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS FROM THE CHILD AND THE CHILD’S teachers. Both attitudes can shape children in negative ways.
Parental disinterest may make special needs students less motivated and parents who are overprotective often diminish their child’s confidence and make it harder for them to learn.
The difficulty of discipline in a special needs classroom. Disabled children may have behavioral issues including restlessness and moodiness. They may also exhibit problems like a short attention span or an inability to understand what is being taught. Special education teachers have to learn how to deal with these problems as well as how to take appropriate disciplinary measures. Budget problems. Across the nation, special education programs are facing increasing enrollment and decreasing budgets.
The result is that there are fewer teacher assistants available, which results in a greater workload for special education teachers. They may also face shortages of essential resources and equipment for delivering effective lessons. Shortage of teachers to handle learners with special needs. Most of the teachers refuse to offer a hand once told to handle a class and later identify that learners in that class are disabled in one way or the other. Many teachers like to teach only learners who are able to do things without any difficulty. They fail to understand that ability is not to everyone.
Shortage of teaching materials. Some schools in Uganda today support the learners with special needs but they are faced with a problem of the materials they are to use to teach the learners for example having brails for the blind. This poses a challenge to special needs education in Uganda today. Statistics about the number of the children with special needs. There is no correct statistical approximation of the number of the children with special needs in Uganda today.
Supplemented by the enumeration of people taking place after a long period. With miss appropriated number of children with special needs, there comes a challenge to the state to budget for them in terms of the resources like human resource available.
Rigid curriculum. Rigidity of the curriculum is also a challenge as it does not clearly show how to handle people with disabilities. The curriculum provides the content but not the pedagogy.
This poses achallenge to the teachers who handle learners with special needs on how to handle and present or deliver the content. There are few schools that offer special needs education in Uganda today.
They are faced with a problem of handling the whole multitude of learners all over the country. The population of learners in those schools is high becoming a challenge to teaching and special needs education in general. There are few training institutions for those who would wish to understand the necessary basics of handling learners with disabilities. Assumptions tend to be taken that it is automatic that an individual cannot fail to handle a person with any form of disability. This is a real misconception as for example a person may just think that he knows but when a disabled person asks him for some help, he directs him to specialists.
Despite the fact that Special needs education is faced with a number of challenges. Some of those challenges can be mitigated. I suggest the following ways that can be used to act as solutions t the number of challenges above are:- Comprehensive review of state laws, regulations and policies should be done to in cooperate policies for efficient implementation of special needs education in Uganda today. In addition government policies should be put in place with clearly well-defined measures to the rights of the disabled and what is expected from the community as far as providing special needs education is concerned.
This will enable the learners to be helped in whatever form the help may be but not being isolated and thus their presence in society thought of as being useless.
Tertiary institutions that train teachers should in cooperate into their curriculum courses that train teachers to handle learners with special needs. This will help increase the human resource that handle learners with special needs eliminating the challenge of the shortage of teachers with skills of handling learners with special needs. Sensitization of stake holders of their roles regarding the support they should render to people with disabilities.
This will make parents not to keep their children at home rather send them to schools where they may be fully partially included in regular classes thus will end up having achieved their right to education. Parents should made aware of the consequences of not rendering a hand in the education of their children. The government should consider the special needs education sector on their budget. This will make them cater for the materials that the students need to learn.
With these materials like the brails available, the implementation of education of learners with special needs will not have much trouble. Review of the curriculum to check where people with various forms of disabilities can be infused into the system needs to be done as this will help teachers have at least some basics of handling the disabled not leaving everything tothose whom they claim to be experts inthat field.
With maximum cooperation of teachers in the school, all the students will thus be catered for.
I hope that when I finish this project that I will be more aware of the history of special needs in Ireland in Ireland and what special needs means. Also I hope that by carrying out this activity that I will become more aware of the needs of children and adults that have special needs. I also hope by reasearching the disability that I will become more aware of children needs with this disability in the future. Special needs refers to a range of needs often caused by a medical, physical, mental or developmental condition or disability. Special needs can also include general learning disabilities, emotional and behavioural disturbance, language and communication difficulties and disorders physical and sensory disabilities.. Sometimes these needs are found as children are delayed in meeting milestones or children been. diagnosed at birth with a disability. History of special needs Ireland.
Special needs in Ireland has changed in the last century. In the early 1990’s all the education was carried out by the religious orders. In 1924 the Dept. of Education was established, but the education of children with special needs was not approved as it was considered as their needs were considered medical rather than educational. Then in 1947 St Vincent’s home for the mentally Defective children was established. This school believed that children with special needs should attend a school for children with special needs rather than being merged with normal children. In 1945 Nancy Jordan joined the staff at St Ultans infant hospital where she set up the first Montessori class in the hospital. In 1956 she set up her first class for emotionally disturbed children. In 1961 she became the principal of Benincasa special school, it was the first school to adapt the Montessori method. It was only then in 1965 that legislation was amendented to state rule 27 that recognition may be granted to schools which provided recognition to schools which provide primary education for the various types of physically or mentally handicapped children.
In 1978 a committee was established in Britain to look into the education of handicapped children and young children this report was known as the Warnick report. The Warnick report established the importance of inclusion to maximise children learning, Differential needs prior to this report all children with special needs were in the one classroom rather than looking at their educational needs and made aware Bullying: Children with special needs are prone to be bullied following this report the Education Act 1981 was brought into legislation. This Act changed the view of special needs in Ireland. Prior to these act children with special needs were categorised as children with needs rather than their specific disability. In 1993 the Special education review influenced the development of inclusion. This was the first review dealing with the broad range of disabilities, following this report the special education needs provision was set up to cater for all children educational needs. It called for the integration of children with special needs into mainstream school.
In 1998 the education act was established under this act everyone is entitled to appropriate education and support services if necessary. The State now has an obligation to provide for the education of every person in the state. Insuring access and equality for persons with disability. The rights of parents to send a child to the school of their choice. Ensuring that the education system is accountable to students their students and the state. The act also instructs the education welfare services and education inspectors to ensure that children with disabilities are referred for assessment of their SEN (Special Education Needs) also have their SEN identified and diagnosed and receive treatment. In the Act the government gave the first definition of disability in Ireland. The Act also defines support services, as the services which the state has provided for the needs of students with disabilities these include. Over the past ten years there have been a number of key legislative developments in education for people with special educational needs which I will list below. In 2004 the The Epsen act was set up it recognises that there a four different types of disabilities: Physical, sensory, Mental health and learning disabilities.
The Act provides for the needs for educational plans for students with disabilities in a mainstream school. The act provides children with disabilities are entitled to be educated in a mainstream school, they have the same rights to be educated. Provides for the greater involvement of parents in the education of their children. The act established the national council for special education NCSE. The HSE have a part in the education of people with special educational needs. There is also an appeals system where parents can appeal decisions made about the education of people with special needs. Under the Epsen act all children with special educational needs should be provided with an Individual education plan and this plan be implemented in a classroom setting not individually. Before IEP is established the school needs to have confirmed a child special Education needs by Identification: the child is known to principal as needing extra help in certain area of school work The principal takes in-school practicable measures to meet the child’s needs If all the above needs have been meet if the child is still not benefiting from the programme in the classroom then child needs to be accessed Special education needs is confirmed with an assessment.
In 2005 the disability act was established. Under the act Disability is listed as anyone with substantial restriction in the capacity of the person to carry out a profession, business or occupation in the state or to participate in social or cultural life by reasons of physical, sensory, mental health or intellectual impairment. Under this act People with disabilities are entitled to 1.Have their health and educational needs assessed 2.Have individual services statements drawn up, setting out what services they are entitled too.3,Access independent complaints and appeals procedure4.Access buildings and public services employment5.Access of needs. Following all the legislation that was brought into place the right of children with special needs were improved and the support. Following all this legislation there is now many resources in place in mainstream school to help with children with special needs, starting with a Special education needs organiser SENO this person main role is to liaise with parent, teacher’s and the Dept of education and links in with the HSE.
There is approxiamelty 80 SENO’s in Ireland. NEPS is the national education psychological service supports the personal, social and educational development of all children through application of psychologist theory. NEPs are responsible for the identifying children educational needs. There are now special education teacher in schools they include learning support teacher works with children whose ability in basic academic skills such as reading or maths fall below the 10th percentile., resource teacher provides support to those children who have special education needs classified as more severe. Visiting teacher for blind and deaf, language support teacher, support teacher works with children with behavioural issues. SNA special needs assistant assist in the care of pupils with disabilities in an educational context. As you can see form reading this that Special needs has changed a lot over the last century.
History of Special Needs Provision in Ireland. (2016, Mar 19). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/history-of-special-needs-provision-in-ireland-essay
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