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Elise R. Osborne

Prof. Derek Ellis

English 101

Inquiry

6 October 2017

Special Education: Should Students Who Have Disabilities Attend Public School?

When it comes to children with special needs, most parents may agree that it is difficult

to find a school that meets their childs needs. This includes how teachers teach in their

environment and if the children with autism spectrum disorder are being isolated in their

mainstream classes. My own experience relates to this because when my sister was a baby, she

was diagnosed with the autism spectrum disorder (ASD). She is having a difficult time finding a

place for my sister because her symptoms are rather severe and my mom feels as though the

school she currently attends does not help her. The teachers do not give my sister the resources

and one-on-one support that she needs and the school does not want to let her go because it

would not be convenient for them. In a situation where teachers are not giving the proper

education to special needs children in mainstream classes, people argue that it is because of how

they are trained while others argue that they should be in private schools that are specifically

designed for their specific needs. One question to ask ourselves is if teachers are in schools to

provide an equal and fair education to all students, then shouldnt they be trained properly and

teach students equality regardless of any physical or mental disabilities? Should students with

disabilities attend public schools?

With many assumptions regarding the benefits of teaching students with disabilities in

specialized settings, it is not surprising that the decisions appear to be affected. According to the
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article, The Persistence of Highly Restrictive Special Education Placements for Students with

Low-Incidence Disabilities, some students who have disabilities can be segregated from a

general education when they are put into restrictive settings whether at home or in school. This is

based on multiple assumptions that some of these students cannot learn in or benefit from

participation in a regular classroom (Kurth et al. 227). However, Kurth and her colleagues do

not see the segregation as a bad thing. With the help from the research done in 1982, they

suggest that the segregation within the public schools can benefit the children with instruction

being provided in smaller class sizes, students are provided effective teaching at a level that is

appropriate to them, and that any assault to the self-esteem of students with disabilities is

prevented (Heller, Holtzman, & Messick, 1982) (Kurth et al. 227). She had proposed this as a

compromise for the special education students who attend public schools instead of them being

directed elsewhere because they are not considered a standard child.

Dimitris Anastasiou and James Kaufman's article A Social Constructionist Approach to

Disability: Implications for Special Education, may disagree with Kurths statement on how

children can benefit from segregated environments. This is because the researchers believe that

children who have disabilities that are not physical tend to be the ones who are segregated.

Anastasiou and Kauffman suggest that as an unjust and uniform educational policy when it

comes to physical impairment (physical/bodily disfunction) and disabilities (social organization)

(Anastasiou and Kauffman 367). The researchers state that social and economic structures

disable impaired people, excluding them from full participation in mainstream social activities

(371). For example, this can imply that when it comes to sports, the disabled child can be on the

team, but is subjected to being a waterboy or a team manager. This can also imply that the

team or organization they are apart of are disabling them even further because they do not let
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them participate in the activity because of their disability. The organization/team are overall

rendering them to doing nothing at all.

In the CQ Researcher article, Special Education: Do students with disabilities get the

help they need?, there is a correlation between the Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and public

schools. The Education for All Handicapped Children Act, now called, the Individuals with

Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), was passed after federal courts decided that all states must

provide an education to all children with physical, mental, or emotional disabilities. Although

many schools have had a positive experience with disabled children, there was still trouble in the

school systems. The dropout rate for disabled students was said to be far higher than for non-

disabled students and countless disabled children, especially from low-income, minority or rural

communities, are not receiving the full benefits of the law (Koch 1). This may be because of how

the Clinton Administration had low balled IDEA and as a result, the funding for IDEA, was

used for other pet projects--- school construction, new teachers (just to name a couple)---

instead of what it should have been used for (Koch 16). This hinders the main objective of the

act and as a result, this could put the children within IDEA at a disadvantage to receive a fair

education because the money used to hire specialists is probably being used for other things and

only a small amount is used for IDEA itself.

Lindsay, author of the article "Educators Challenges of Including Children with Autism

Spectrum Disorder in Mainstream Classrooms, offers a different idea for the trouble in the

school systems. She suggests that the reason for trouble in the school system is because the

educators are experiencing challenges. These challenges include, but are not limited to:

understanding/managing behavior, socio-structural barriers (i.e., school policy, lack of training

and resources); and creating an inclusive environment (i.e., lack of understanding from other
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teachers, students, and parents) (Lindsay 347). With this suggestion, the troubles are based on

how the teachers are trained especially since more special needs children are being placed in

mainstream classes. The teachers claim that gaps can leave teachers feeling discouraged while

students with ASD may miss opportunities to reach their full potential (Allen & Cowdery, 2005;

Warnock, 2005) (348). In order to improve their skills and reduce the gap between the

teachers and the children with ASD, the suggest that more resources, training, and support are

needed to enhance the education and inclusion of children with ASD in mainstream classes.

Lisa Rudys article Where Are the Best Schools for Kids with Autism?, will agree with

majority of the points presented such as, children with ASD should be included in classroom

settings with a few limitations and if they are getting the education they need. Agreement ends,

however, because when it comes to the best school for a childs needs, Rudy brings up the

notion about how a child with ASD presents whether or not that they have mild, severe, or

moderate symptoms. She then describes the many perspectives on autism and its many levels.

These include: children with autism should receive intense behavioral (ABA) therapy as a major

element of their school program or children with autism should not receive behavioral therapy,

but instead should received developmental therapy (paragraph 6-7). Rudy also notes that a

cognitively challenged child with relatively severe symptoms may have a terrific experience in

the same school because he has few sensory issues and is quite comfortable in the physical

setting or some children with autism actively want to participate in social events, while others

have no desire to do so. This explains that if a child has a sensitivity to, for example, the lights

being on or yelling, that child is more prone to misbehave because their brain does not like what

is around it. This makes a rather difficult for parents and teachers which can be a reasonable
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explanation for why, as mentioned above, there is a gap between teachers and their special

needs students because of how broad the autism spectrum is and its neverending limits.

Children and parents of children with the autism spectrum disorder all go through the

difficulty of finding the best school for them. But while going through these difficulties, more

of them arose in regards to the teaching, education, and the priority of all children with

disabilities. Does the government actually give the money to IDEA like they are supposed to so

that teacher can be properly trained to teach disabled kids? Or have they been funding other

projects which have resulted in the decline of proper education of disabled kids around the

country?
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Bibliography

Anastasiou, Dimitris and James M. Kauffman. "A Social Constructionist Approach to Disability:

Implications for Special Education." Exceptional Children, vol. 77, no. 3, Spring2011,

pp. 367-384. EBSCOhost,

search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=59570658&site=ehost-live

Lindsay, Sally, et al. "Educators Challenges of Including Children with Autism Spectrum

Disorder in Mainstream Classrooms." International Journal of Disability, Development

&

Education, vol. 60, no. 4, Dec. 2013, pp. 347-362. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1080/1034912X.2013.846470

Koch, Kathy. "Special Education." CQ Researcher, 10 Nov. 2000, pp. 905-28,

library.cqpress.com/cqresearcher/cqresrre2000111000

Kurth, Jennifer A., et al. "The Persistence of Highly Restrictive Special Education Placements

for Students with Low-Incidence Disabilities." Research & Practice for Persons with

Severe Disabilities, vol. 39, no. 3, Sept. 2014, pp. 227-239. EBSCOhost,

doi:10.1177/1540796914555580

Rudy, Lisa J. Should my Autistic Child Attend a Public School? Autism, May 2017, VeryWell,

www.verywell.com/where-are-the-best-schools-for-kids-with-autism-3971459