Changes For the Better

This article was published in September of 2007. Since the end of World War II, assistance for those with special needs began because of a group of parents who began to advocate for those with special needs. Around 1947 this advocacy group surfaced and reform for the assistance for those with special needs began. Because of different advocacy groups in the 1950s, special education was introduced to the school systems in the 1960s on a federal level as opposed to what had been in effect before. The foundation was laid by the parents who advocated for their children who needed special assistance in schools. Congress passed legislation in 1975 called the “Education for All Handicapped Children Act.” Or public law 94-142. This law was essentially the beginning for federal funding for children with specials needs in the classroom across the nation. This article also talks about “FAPE” or “Free appropriate public education”, stating that this new public law passed was a big milestone for students with disabilities with major or mild. Eventually in the 1980s, the previous law that was passed in the 70s was changed and called IDEA, or Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. Because of this law being passed over 6 million children are now being offered assistance based in their disability funded by the government. As the years go on and the amount of students in special needs classes rose, it became apparent that a majority of these students in special needs classrooms all had weak cognitive skills. Cognitive skills are the skills that a child has mentally that allow for the student to learn and actually retain what they learn. These skills are where a student can associate pictures and words to identify something or artistic abilities rather than say a math or English course which is an academic skill. Assistance has come so far from where it began once parents started advocating for equal rights. Now there is freely funded testing available to help identify these disabilities at younger ages so that early intervention can take place and the student can begin to work to conquer their learning disability.

reference web address: http://www.edarticle.com/special-education/special-education-has-changed-over-time.html