Special Education Needs Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words

Special Education Needs - Essay Example Special Education Needs (SEN) refers to that extra or different wants of children will have due to the fact that such experience unusual learning difficulties something which lead to such children to experience difficulties not only in learning but also having an equal access to education, training and even work opportunity. Besides, language difficulties such children experience, numerous challenges, difficulties in cognitive process, and behavioural difficulties as well as psychomotor difficulties. The inclusion debate has also been concerned with the continuity dilemma for children with special needs given the fact that most children with special education needs find it hard to fit in the higher education levels as a lot of government help has in the past been given to the primary level (Audit Commission, 1992). This imbalance has created a different kind of treatment for children with special education at primary school level and different treatment when such children graduate into higher levels of education. This has been a challenge and has been fronted as a main argument by the proponents of the inclusion debate who argue that inclusion will put the children with special education need at an advantage in that if they are integrated into mainstream classes, as opposed to specialist schools, they will advance their chances of performing well at higher levels of education (Copeland, 1991). Children with special education needs are more likely to miss opportunities of higher education, as there are no sufficient numbers of higher-level education institutions, which offer specialised education (Brown, 1994). Therefore most children with special education end up getting admission to mainstream universities and colleges where special treatment is not high compared to the primary level of education. There is a need to include or integrate children into mainstream classes early enough so as to prepare such children to fit normally in mainstream colleges and universities. Children who attend specialist schools are more likely to take a long time to fit into the mainstream colleges and universities than children with special education who attended mainstream schools early in life (Allen, 1994). Specialist schools have been negatively viewed as being associated with the disadvantaged, the less fortunate, the mentally ill, the deaf and such negative labelling which can affect the self-esteem of children with special education needs. Therefore specialists' schools meet the immediate needs of the children at primary school level but do not prepare the children for challenges associated with higher levels of education. The other challenge for those children who attend specialist school is that the children may get used to specialised treatment due to the availability of special equipment and specialised staff. This is lacking in most institutions at higher levels of education and such children are more likely to experience problems in future when trying to change and fit into a mainstream class. The debate surrounding special education needs has been surrounded by controversies in agreeing to what constitutes of special needs, what to be included and what not to include. This has led to debate on whether some conditions such as dyslexia were