Components of Special

Needs Education
LAURENCE D. AGSALUD, MA. Ed.
Child Find

 A program that actively seeks to locate and

identify children and youth, ages birth
through 21 years of age, who may have
developmental delays or educational
disabilities and may need special education
and related services.
Child Find

 Child Find activities, when conducted in the

school, may include teacher observations,
parent observations, and conferences to
discuss your child’s strengths and needs.
 These activities may lead to a formal process
designed to further explore ways to assist
your child. This process may ultimately
result in a recommendation for your child to
receive special education services.
Legal Foundation of
Child Find
IDEA
 Affirmative, ongoing duty to identify, locate and
evaluate all children with disabilities residing in
the state who are in need of special education

California law
 Education Code’s child find requirements includes
homeless children, wards of the state, children
attending private schools
 Applies regardless of the severity of disabilities
Two Components of
Child Find
General “public notice”
responsibility
Inform and educate public about need to
locate and identify all children with
disabilities
Obligation to specific child
Triggered when district knows – or should
know – that student may have a disability
Elements of Child Find

 Definition of Target Population

The state defines the criteria that determine
which children are eligible for help. Some
states expand the target population to include
at-risk children, not just those who have
disabilities or developmental delays.
Elements of Child Find

 Public Awareness
The state raises public awareness about
children who need help and the services
available to them, targeting parents,
caregivers, educators, school staff, physicians
and others.
 Referral and Intake
A child is referred for services; specific
procedures vary, depending on the state.
Elements of Child Find

Screening and Identification

The child is screened for possible
disabilities or developmental delays.
Eligibility Determination
Results of the screening are compared to
the state’s eligibility guidelines, which
must be consistent with federal
regulations.
Elements of Child Find

Tracking
The state tracks and follows up with
children who are receiving services.
Interagency Coordination
Some states have multiple agencies that
share responsibilities mandated by IDEA.
Resources must be coordinated to ensure
availability of services.
Assessment

 The process used to determine a child’s

specific learning strengths and needs, and to
determine whether or not a child is eligible
for special education services.
 Process that involves collecting information
about a student for the purpose of making
decisions.
Assessment

 Assessment, also known as evaluation, can

be seen as a problem-solving process that
involves many ways of collecting information
about the student.
 Assessment is “a process that involves the
systematic collection and interpretation of a
wide variety of information on which to base
instructional/intervention decisions and,
when appropriate, classification and
placement decisions.
Importance of Assessment

 Helps determine the extent and direction of

a child’s personal journey through the
special education experience.
 The skills you must possess in order to offer
a child the most global, accurate, and
practical evaluation should be fully
understood such as good working
knowledge.
Components of the Assessment
Process
 Collection: The process of tracing and
gathering information from the many
sources of background information on a
child such as school records, observation,
parent intakes, and teacher reports
 Analysis: The processing and
understanding of patterns in a child’s
educational, social, developmental,
environmental, medical, and emotional
history
Components of the Assessment
Process
 Evaluation: The evaluation of a child’s
academic, intellectual, psychological,
emotional, perceptual, language, cognitive,
and medical development in order to
determine areas of strength and weakness
 Determination: The determination of the
presence of a suspected disability and the
knowledge of the criteria that constitute
each category
Components of the Assessment
Process
 Recommendation: The recommendations
concerning educational placement and
program that need to be made to the school,
teachers, and parents
Purpose of Assessment

 screening and identification: to screen

children and identify those who may be
experiencing delays or learning problems
 eligibility and diagnosis: to determine
whether a child has a disability and is
eligible for special education services, and to
diagnose the specific nature of the student's
problems or disability
Purpose of Assessment

 IEP development and placement: to

provide detailed information so that an
Individualized Education Program (IEP) may
be developed and appropriate decisions may
be made about the child's educational
placement
 instructional planning: to develop and
plan instruction appropriate to the child's
special needs
Assessment and
Categories of Disability
 autism: a developmental disability
significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal
communication and social interaction,
generally evident before age 3.
 deafness: a hearing impairment that is so
severe that the child is impaired in
processing linguistic information, with or
without amplification
Assessment and Categories of
Disability
 deaf-blindness: simultaneous hearing and
visual impairments
 hearing impairment: an impairment in
hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating
 mental retardation: significantly sub-
average general intellectual functioning
existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive
behavior
Assessment and Categories of
Disability
 multiple disabilities: the manifestation of
two or more disabilities (such as mental
retardation-blindness), the combination of
which requires special accommodation for
maximal learning
 orthopedic impairment: physical
disabilities, including congenital
impairments, impairments caused by
disease, and impairments from other causes
Assessment and Categories of
Disability
 other health impairment: having limited
strength, vitality, or alertness due to chronic
or acute health problems
 visual impairment: a visual difficulty
(including blindness) that, even with
correction, adversely affects a child
educational performance
Assessment and Categories of
Disability
 serious emotional disturbance: a
disability where a child of typical intelligence
has difficulty, over time and to a marked
degree, building satisfactory interpersonal
relationships; responds inappropriately
behaviorally or emotionally under normal
circumstances; demonstrates a pervasive
mood of unhappiness; or has a tendency to
develop physical symptoms or fears
Assessment and Categories of
Disability
 specific learning disability: a disorder in
one or more of the basic psychological
processes involved in understanding or in
using language, spoken or written, which
may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to
listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do
mathematical calculations
Assessment and Categories of
Disability
 speech or language impairment: a
communication disorder such as stuttering,
impaired articulation, a language
impairment, or a voice impairment
 traumatic brain injury: an acquired injury
to the brain caused by an external physical
force, resulting in total or partial functional
disability or psychosocial impairment, or
both
Placement

 Refers to the amount of time in each school

day that a student spends in the resource or
in a general education classroom.
 Schools required to have a range of
placements where your child can be taught,
including in the general education
classroom.
Placement

 In deciding your child’s placement, the

Admission, Review and Dismissal (ARD)
committee must make sure your child
spends as much of their school day with
children who do not have disabilities (Least
Restrictive Environment).
Placement

 The LRE for children with disabilities

depends on each child’s unique needs. It’s
important to know that schools cannot use a
“one size fits all” approach to educating
children who have disabilities.
Educational Setting

 Mainstream (General Education): Many

students receive special education and
related services in a general education
classroom where peers without disabilities
also spend their days (Inclusion).
 Some services that a student might receive in a mainstream
setting include: direct instruction, a helping teacher, team
teaching, co-teaching, an interpreter, education aides,
modifications or accommodations in lessons or instruction,
or more teachers per student.
Educational Setting

 Resource: This is a class for students who

receive special education services and need
intensive help to keep up with grade-level
work. The class may have 1 or 2 students,
or may have many students.
 However, students receive instruction or
support based on their unique needs. The
number of minutes your child spends in a
resource class must be written into the IEP.
Educational Setting

 Self-Contained Programs: This is a

general term for placements for which the
student needs to receive services outside of
the general education classroom for half of
the school day or more. Placement in a self-
contained classroom has to be based on a
student’s unique needs, not on the disability
alone.
Specialized Settings

 Life Skills: This helps students with many

different types of disabilities but generally
those who need support with academic,
social, or behavioral issues as well as daily
living skills. Students who receive services in
this program may stay until they turn 22
years old.
Specialized Settings

 Social Behavior Skills (SBS): This goes

by different names in different districts. It is
also called Applied Behavior Skills or just
Behavior Skills. In this program, trained
teachers help students learn decision-
making and social skills (to promote self-
responsibility) with other peers around. SBS
is a separate classroom that children can
stay in full-time or part-time, depending on
their IEP.
Specialized Settings

 Preschool Program for Children with

Disabilities (PPCD): This is a set of special
education services for children age 3 to 5.
Any PPCD placement can include related
services like occupational, physical, or
speech therapy.
Specialized Settings

 Transition or 18+: A small number of

students may stay enrolled in special
education services until they turn 21 or 22
years old even after they have graduated
with a certificate of completion. Most of
these programs are designed to help the
student build more independence and get
ready to go out into the workforce. Students
might stay in the classroom for some of the
day and go to job training for the rest of the
day.
Accommodation

 Accommodations are changes that remove

barriers and provide your child with equal
access to learning. Accommodations don’t
change what your child is learning. Rather,
they change how your child is learning.
Accommodation

 Accommodations don’t change what your

child is expected to know or learn. They
don’t lower expectations. The
accommodation simply helps her work
around her challenges.
Types of Accommodation
- work best when they target a specific barrier or
challenge.

Presentation: A change in the

way information is presented.
Example: Letting a child with dyslexia
listen to audiobooks instead of reading
printed text.
Types of Accommodation
- work best when they target a specific barrier or
challenge.

Response: A change in the way a

child completes assignments or tests.
Example: Providing a keyboard to a
child who struggles with handwriting
when she’s writing an essay.
Types of Accommodation
- work best when they target a specific barrier or
challenge.

Setting: A change in the

environment where a child learns.
Example: Allowing a child with ADHD
to take a test in a separate room with
fewer distractions.
Types of Accommodation
- work best when they target a specific barrier or
challenge.

Timing and scheduling: A change

to the time a child has for a task.
Example: Providing extra time on
homework for a child who has slow
processing speed.
Accommodation Outside
the Classroom
 Learning and attention issues don’t just
create challenges in school. They also affect
everyday life. That’s why accommodations
also exist outside the classroom. But instead
of providing an equal opportunity to learn,
they provide an equal opportunity to
participate.
Modification

 Individualized changes made to the content

and performance expectations for students.
 Modifications are changes to what your child
is taught or expected to do in school.
 Modifications aren’t the same as
accommodations, which are changes to how
your child learns.
Modification

 If a child is struggling, one possible strategy

is giving him less schoolwork or simpler
assignments. While modifications can make
school easier for kids, they can have serious
drawbacks, too.
 Imagine a third-grade class is expected to read Kate
DiCamillo’s chapter book, Because of Winn-Dixie.
However, Bret, a student with dyslexia, is struggling
to read the book at the same pace as the rest of the
class.
 An accommodation could be to let Bret use text-to-
speech (TTS) technology to read the book aloud. TTS,
like other dyslexia accommodations, can help Bret
keep up with the rest of class as they read and learn
about the whole book.
 On the other hand, a modification could be that Bret
only has to read part of the book. Or, he may be
assigned a simpler book to read.
Examples of Modification

 Quantity:
Modify the number of items that the child is
expected to learn or complete. (Depending
on how it is written in the IEP, this could
include entire sections of the curriculum.
 I.E: Only completing the addition portion of a
math assignment that also includes
subtraction, multiplication and division)
Examples of Modification

Output:
How a student responds to instruction
For Example: Instead of writing an essay,
they may be given multiple choice
questions. Instead of open-ended
questions, they may be given a yes/no
strategy option
Examples of Modification

Alternate Goals:
Use the general education curriculum
while adapting the goal or outcome
expectation.
For example: Instead of taking the MEAP
test, the student takes the MI-Access
Parent Involvement

 Parent participation in the special education

decision-making process is vitally important.
The most important thing parents can do is
ensure they are involved with and take an
active role as a member of the Individual
Education Program (IEP) team that
determines a student's path.
Role of Parents

Parents May Underestimate Their

Importance to the IEP Team
Parents and other guardians should not
let school personnel intimidate them in
this process, because their role as
student advocate is paramount.
Role of Parents

Parents Provide Critical Input

Parents and guardians know their
children better than anyone else
and have the most complete
understanding of a child's physical, social,
developmental, and family history.
Role of Parents

Parents Provide Critical Input

 Parents are the only adults in the
educational process who have been and
will continue to be deeply involved
throughout the child's school career; and
while they may not be educators
themselves, they bring their years of
experience in other professions and
aspects of life to the process.
Role of Parents

Parents Work More Closely With

Their Children Than Other Adults
Can
 Parents have the opportunity to sit side-by-side with
them, working through homework and other learning
activities for extended periods.
 Parents may be the only adults who closely observe
students' work and get feedback from their children.
Consequently, no one else has the perspective of a
parent in a meeting.
Role of Parents

 The Role of the Parent on the IEP Team

 They provide information on the child's strengths
and weaknesses at home, background information
on the child's history and development, and
information on any family factors that may affect
the child's learning.
 Parents should be prepared to offer insight into
whether current strategies and instruction are
helping the child learn (even when not specifically
asked), and provide suggestions for change and
improvement.
Role of Parents

Parents Provide Comprehensive

Insight for Transition Meetings
 Transition meetings are held to discuss movement
from one school level to another, from one
program to another, or to a postsecondary
program, job, or assisted living program. Only the
parent accompanies the child throughout these
important school and life transitions. The parents'
input at each transition can ensure that
appropriate services and supports are in place and
increase the chances of the child's success in the
new program.
Role of Parents

Parents Are the Best Advocates

for Their Child
There is no one as interested in and
motivated to see a child succeed and
thrive than her own parents