Special Education Timeline

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https://www.timetoast.com/timelines/1802186


Special Education refers to specially designed instruction that meets the specific needs of a student who has a disability and its current status lies within the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, IDEA (Understanding Special Education, 2016). IDEA is a law that makes education free and available to students with disabilities across the nation and ensures that these students receive appropriate special education services (IDEA, n.d.). IDEA came into effect in 1990, was reauthorized in 1997, and then reauthorized again in 2004, which is the most current law that states and public agencies follow. Everyone has the right to learn and just because one has a disability does not make that individual less of a person. With that said, IDEA was created to improve the chances of a student with disabilities to contribute to society and develop and share their talents.

Students in special education have opportunities to learn with the general population of students, and educators and other professionals involved in a student’s special education must adhere to their IEP or 504 plan. There are 13 categories of special education as defined by IDEA and in order to quality for special education services, an IEP team must determine that the child has at least one of the 13 categories (Understanding Special Education, 2016). In my opinion, I think there are many challenges in special education. Since special education is free for students with categorized learning disabilities, I think funding is the biggest challenge. I also think categorizing a child to have a disability is another challenge if parties (parents, school, doctors, etc.) are not in agreement with the diagnosis. On a teacher standpoint, I think making sure that the requirements in the IEP are consistently met for an individual student can be difficult when there are 20 other students in the class. It will be important for teachers to work alongside with the students' IEP teams and families in order to ensure that the students have the best chance to learn and reach their best potential.

References:

IDEA (n.d.). About Idea. Retrieved from https://sites.ed.gov/idea/about-idea/#IDEA-History.

The University of Kansas (2018). Timeline of the individuals with disabilities education act (IDEA). Retrieved from https://educationonline.ku.edu/community/idea-timeline.

Understanding Special Education (2016). Understanding the 13 categories of special education. Retrieved from https://www.understandingspecialeducation.com/13-categories-of-special-education.html.  

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