The majority of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) students are now in mixed classrooms as schools embrace inclusion. These changes are transforming the landscape of general education. Furthermore, the continued decline in the number of special education teachers and the increased emphasis on team teaching or co-teaching is also shaping special education management in districts. The lines that separate general education from special education concerning identification, teaching, and learning are getting thin.
Special education is hopeful for all kids under any circumstances. Special education teachers need to be aware of current issues in the field to address the needs of learners with disabilities successfully.
Even though general and special education face similar problems, special education also has additional problems that educators need to acknowledge. The following trends explain why special education teachers with expertise are so important.
1. Technology
One of the most groundbreaking changes in the classroom is technology and students with IEPs get special interventions. Technology integration boosts effective instruction in the classroom by offering students more personalized learning experiences and enabling the teacher to have more time for individualized instruction through blended learning and the use of different evidence-based practices on the web. This means that students are no longer stuck in a pace they cannot comprehend or a classroom setting they do not relate to.
2. Inclusion Practices
Inclusive education is at the core of special education yet supporting it in practice is difficult. Isolation is still a reality for some students with disabilities both in and out of classrooms which hurts their social and academic growth. This is a problem that educators have to address to overcome.
It is today crucial for specialist college programs to emphasize the issue of inclusive teaching. The implementation of courses on Contemporary Issues in Special Education is crucial to ensure future educators are ready to create a classroom where all students are equally welcomed and appreciated.
3. Homelessness
It is no secret that poverty affects students and learning; but how many educators know the number of homeless students in their classroom? This issue concerns more students than one would think, and the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) places greater emphasis on the assessment of the learning progress of this subgroup of students. These students typically do not fall within the scope of special education as traditionally defined.
In the case of homeless students, school might be the only stable environment in their lives, and therefore, the only key to structure and, above all, access to the help needed to escape poverty. These students have numerous and often complicated challenges in their lives outside of school that cannot help but influence their learning and engagement in instruction.
The added stress of living in a homeless shelter hurts the learning disabilities of children who are already receiving special education services. Changes can be difficult for children with disabilities and there is nothing more disorienting than not knowing where you will be sleeping from night to night. However, it does not mean that all homeless students have to go through the evaluation process for special education services or that all of them need to. Academic assistance and materials are crucial for these students because it is nearly impossible to combine coping with the unstable situation with trying to stay engaged in the learning process.
4. Parental Support
Special education has been widely covered about the issues encountered by students and teachers, especially after the identification and diagnosis of disabilities. But there is one more thing that we have not yet mentioned – the strategy when it comes to parents’ meetings. You may be the first to report that there is a problem with their child as their teacher. It is hard to begin this talk and may be accompanied by crying or fear. Do not forget that this is their child and you are only getting a glimpse of the whole picture.
Right from the beginning, it is necessary to join a special structure, which can help the student as much as possible. It is also easy to forget that you and the parents have the child’s best interest at heart. Your contribution is critical in the life of the student and your voice should be heard as well as the voice of the parent. Always put the child’s welfare into consideration. You are the champion while they are the parents. All work together to develop a strategy that is acceptable to all and goes to the students.
Public policies increasingly mandate the inclusion of special needs students in general education classrooms. These students are tested and instructed in the general population. ESSA defines explicit exclusion limits for students in high-stakes testing. The new assessment landscape is learning-focused and shifts the focus from final scores to growth—a paradigm that special education teachers have supported for decades.
5. Twice-Exceptional Students
One of the major issues of concern for teachers is the delivery of content which should be relevant to every child at every grade and level. This becomes even more complicated when referring to special needs students; the content has to be age-appropriate and skill-appropriate. Among these students, there is a unique group that often goes unnoticed due to their talents: gifted students with learning disabilities.
Twice-exceptional learners are learners who are identified as both gifted learners and learners who have special needs. These students typically possess exceptional skills in specific content areas yet often require special education services due to conditions like ADHD, learning disabilities, or ASD. Thus, their giftedness may be overlooked or misidentified as special needs, and vice versa, which may result in them being labelled as “lazy” or “underachievers” when, in reality, they are not.
Educators are aware that there is a category of 2E students that is invisible in the classroom. The true problem is to accurately recognize these students, determine their specific learning issues, and develop interventions that address their holistic growth. Bright teachers are nowadays discovering means through which they can offer the same opportunities to these students as the gifted students to enable them to learn in a way that focuses on the strengths of the students as well as addressing their weaknesses at the same time.
