Special education

Special education (SpEd), as the term implies, is a specialized kind of education

system that caters to the academic and learning needs of special children.
Psychology also plays an important role in the development of the special
educational system. Special educators teach those students who have physical,
cognitive, language, learning, sensory, and/or emotional abilities that deviate from
those of the general population. They provide instruction specifically tailored to
meet each childs individual needs.
Characteristics of special education

Combined with the principles of psychology (educational psychology, study of

behavior, and principles of learning), SpEd is effective in providing adequate
academic and psychological support to students with special needs as well as their
parents. SpEd curricula are based on process trainingthey involve ways to
improve the children's academic performance by teaching them cognitive or motor
processes, such as visual memory, auditory memory, perceptual skills, and/or
auditory-vocal processing. Basically, the focus is on:

the childs creative, critical, and analytical thinking

the development of perceptual and motor skills

orientation and mobility skills

the development of the different modes of communication, and

the improvement of occupational and vocational skills.

Special education in the Philippines

The Special
Education
Division under DepEd's Bureau
of
Elementary
Education strives to provide basic education to Filipino children with special needs
that will help them:

fully realize their own potentials for development and productivity

become capable of self-expression and knowledgeable of their rights

become God-loving and proud of being Filipinos.

The division believes that every child with special needs has a right to an
educational program that is suitable to his needs. It also shares the basic
responsibilities of the educational system, similar to the basic regular educational
system, to fulfill the right of the child to develop his/her potentials. The Department
of Education also has issued a memorandum that mandates the organization of a
SpEd unit in each region, which can ultimately help make education accessible to

the less fortunate and the residents of far-flung areas, especially those with
special needs.
Criticisms and issues
Some critics claim that the use of diagnostic labels and methods of teaching is
potentially stigmatizing to students, while others say that education of students
with disabilities in special classes and schools, even pulling students out for
instruction in resource classes, is akin to race-based segregation.

Special education has also been validly criticized for the way in which students with
disabilities are identified. Many of the disability categories overlap to the extent that
it is hard to differentiate one from the other. Additionally, some of the
categorieslearning disabilities and behavioral disorders, for exampleare defined
by the exclusion of other disabilities.

Source: http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php/Special_education