Enhanced Concerns: Special Education for Children with Developmental Disorders - Free Paper

Introduction

Recently in Australia and internationally, there have been enhanced concerns regarding the appropriateness of the traditional methods of support provision for young people and children at school with developmental disorders such as autism, ADHD, and intellectual disability. Developmental disabilities encompass function limitations as a result of disorders of the developing nervous system (Jablensky et al., 2001). When children are assessed and found to be qualified for special education, it is usual for their families to be concerned that they will be put in a separate lecture hall from other children of their age. However, the majority of children with developmental disorders spend most of their time in mainstream learning classes. Most of these classrooms are referred to as inclusive classrooms, whereby special education and general education teachers work in a group to, meet all the student's needs. As such, most education institutions recognise and emphasise that students with developmental disorders are the first mainstream education students. In this light, this paper exhibits that educating students with developmental disorders such as ADHD, Autism, and intellectual disability in the mainstream classroom carries more benefits than costs.

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Benefits of Inclusion

To begin with, there is a need for inclusive classrooms for all students, which is beneficial not only for students with a developmental disability but to their non-disability classmates (McCarty, 2006). Thus, including students with developmental disorders in the regular classroom is imperative not just because it is morally right. Still, also there are several essential motives for mixing learners with developmental disorders into mainstream education, which enhances the learning outcomes for all students.

Individualized Instructions

One of the principles of inclusive education is that there is variance in how students learn. Hence, instructors develop support and instructions that are specially designed to help learners achieve progress. The approaches are beneficial to all learners. Children may be permitted to use fidgets or move around while educators usually put positive behavioral interventions and support in place (Jablensky et al., 2001). Another important approach is breaking the learners into small groups. As such, the use of small groups helps the teachers tailor their teaching instructions and support to suit how students learn best which is referred to as differentiated instruction (McMillan, 2008). Therefore, when students with developmental disorders learn in the mainstream classroom, they enable the tutors to meet the requirements of all the students by the needs of students by representing lessons in various methods. For instance, they may utilize multisensory teaching. In mathematics, it refers to the use of manipulative skills and visual aids like colored chips and cubes to assist children in studying novel concepts (Hayes and Bulat, 2017). Moreover, several mainstream classrooms may have interactive whiteboards whereby students can use their fingers to move images around, write, and erase on the huge screen. The instruction tool can be employed to convert learners to work in a video that is engaging and exciting for children. Therefore, mainstream education for children with developmental disorders brings about innovative and inventive learning models that are beneficial to all students. It also offers learners with disabilities the help they require in a mainstream education classroom.

Students with developmental disorders challenge educators to collaborate and develop better methods to instruct all children. Further, to provide a successful inclusion in the classroom, tutors need to create an education environment that offers a variety of methods in which learning instructions are engaged with, assessed, and represented. The process helps all students, including those with developmental disorders.

Diversity in the Classroom

Education students with developmental disorders in mainstream classrooms make the classroom diverse. This addition of diversity enriches their lives. As such, cultural diversity gives novel possibilities and ideas that make for a more exciting classroom (McMillan, 2008). Thus, inclusive classrooms are full of diverse students with different strengths and weaknesses. Inclusion in a mainstream classroom provides children with the opportunity to understand how every individual learns in their way. As such, students with developmental disorders and others may find or realize that they have more in common with other students than they previously conceived. As such, it helps the students appreciate that being different is just a normal part of life (McMillan, 2008). Most importantly, it also helps the children develop and maintain friendships boosting their self-confidence. As such, inclusion in the classroom increases relationships, networks, and social initiations.

New Strengths and Climate of Giving

Students with developmental disorders take different strengths to the class. Regrettably, most frequently, people concentrate on what students with disabilities need when they should be paying attention to what they can do better (McMillan, 2008). Every year, new evidence is developing about the various strengths of learners with developmental disorders including systemic capabilities and excellence with computers among people with ASD, creative thinking in students with ADHD, and human warmth and personal charm with intellectual abilities (Cosier et al., 2013). Special needs students assist in encouraging an environment of giving in the class. Likewise, learners with unique requirements can improve any learning setting by relaying a message to other learners that people should help each other.

People with developmental disorders brains develop powerful neural connections in a richer learning environment (Jablensky, 2001). A study that involved rodents in the 1960s at the University of California showed that rats living in a more comfortable inclusive environment had more branches or dendrites spreading out of brain cells and linking with other neurons than in the isolated or excluded environment (Kalambouka, 2007). This study has been applied to humans establishing that students, including those with special needs, greatly benefit from an optimal learning environment offered in inclusive classrooms. For example, ASD students have been identified as having a fascinating interest in a certain area of education, by giving them time during class to share with others helps them develop much-required social skills (Kalambouka, 2007). Thus, providing greater opportunity for interactions.

Support Provision to All Students

In a more conventional disability learning environment, the majority of the children are put in a special classroom for associated services such as speech therapy (Odom et al., 2001). However, an inclusive classroom usually brings reading specialists and speech therapists into the class. These specialized experts offer suggestions and information to assist all learners. Ideally, there are learners in the class who are not qualified for special education but still need additional help that they cannot get informally. As such, they tend to benefit when specialized professionals visit the classroom. Therefore, educating students with developmental problems in the mainstream education classroom helps in providing beneficial support for all students.

High Expectations for All Students

In mainstream education classrooms, student's goals are founded on the educational criteria in their State. These standards set out what the learners are supposed to study in reading, science, math, and other disciplines by the end of the academic year (Cosier et al., 2013). Therefore, collaborative teaching and differentiated instruction in mainstream education classrooms make it simple for learners’ standards-based individualized education programs to be instructed with similar information as to their peers. Learners with developmental disorders perform well when in a setting where more is expected from them. According to Hayes (2017), when instructors expect more from learners their achievement goes up. When students are excluded from mainstream classrooms, the potential for self-condemnation, stigmatisation, and ridicule are increased, and tutors tend to treat these learners as less able in comparison with students without developmental disorders (Cosier et al., 2013). Therefore, in a mainstream education classroom, special needs students can be regarded as normal enough to learn in a classroom setting. They are motivated by the positive performances of their classmates, and they rise to higher expectations of teachers (Wilson & Michaels, 2006). Hence, there is an increased achievement of the IEP goals.

Increased Inclusion in Future Environments

Students with developmental disabilities are more likely to pursue higher education and jobs after graduating from high school. According to McMillan (2008), students with special needs tend to behave more appropriately in comparison to when they learn in isolation from other learners. They, therefore, learn how to behave appropriately in a diverse environment by being encircled by their classmates without disabilities (McMillan, 2008). Moreover, their classmates benefit too in that they become more tolerant and comfortable with the differences. Increasing positive self-confidence and caring, diverse friendships.

Cost of Inclusion

Students with developmental disorders normally present special challenges to teachers and schools who can find it difficult to meet their needs. Hence, every student is special, and their needs are differently reflected.

Teacher Training

Instructors are the most potent resource in all didactic settings, and the significance of building their skills and knowledge cannot be overemphasized. As such, inclusive education requires mainstream educators to train how to handle students with developmental disabilities. In schools or states where teachers are, there are no instructional training and standards to help and support special needs teachers. The curriculum usually does not involve training associated with the nature of the approaches and disabilities for working with these learners with developmental disorders (Hates, 2017). Therefore, there is a serious shortage of instructors who can effectively help with the personal requirements of the learners since inclusion is inadequately addressed and neglected in the training of teachers. Furthermore, regular education tutors must collaborate with special teachers. The cost of hiring additional special needs teachers is high. The barriers can cause anxiety, depression, and stress.

Mainstream education Classroom

Despite many schools agreeing to the inclusion principles, the regular education classroom is not well equipped to accommodate special needs students. Most tutors are concerned with maintaining conformity to routine rather than addressing personal differences (Kavale, 2002). There is an increased demand for teachers in an inclusive environment in the class. Therefore, most tutors found it comfortable to employ nonspecific and generic teaching strategies that are not likely to meet the special needs of students with disabilities. Thus, most students with disabilities prefer the pull-out programs over those exclusive in the general education environment.