Inclusive and Supportive Education Congress International Special Education Conference Inclusion: Celebrating Diversity? 1st - 4th August 2005. Glasgow, Scotland

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Contemporary Special Education:
Redefined, Lost or Just Good Education Practice?

David Evans   PhD
University of Sydney, Australia

Contact Details:
Associate Professor David Evans
Faculty of Education and Social Work    A35
University of Sydney     NSW     2006    Australia
d.evans@edfac.usyd.edu.au

Historically, special education has provided much debate about quality practice. Practices have come and gone, not having withstood the critical analysis of the field (e.g., modality training, process training). These experiences have provided valuable lessons to the field of special education, and have been character building for those who work within the field.

The emergence of inclusive education practices over the past decades has provided a strong base on which evidenced-based special education practices have been developed. This emergence has also challenged special educators to reflect on their beliefs, and made them question what they actually stand for at a time when their existence is being challenged. These challenges have seen the need for people to define clearly what is meant by special education (e.g., Ashman & Elkins, 2002; Heward, 2003; Zigmond, 1997), and to review and reiterate quality special education practices (e.g., Browder, 2004; Deno, 2003; Odom, 2003; Vaughn, 2004).

In the Australian education scene, the recent changes to the Disability Discrimination Act will result in the enactment of the Disability Standards for Education. These Standards highlight the need for educators to be aware of skills, knowledge and values that will assist include students with disabilities in a full range of education programs. These changes indirectly give special educators an important role to play in all classrooms and schools – supporting students, teachers and communities to adjust programs and attitudes to ensure students with disabilities are provided with quality education programs. For some people this may require the concept of special education to be articulated clearly, and the value to them highlighted.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the concept of special education. In examining the concept of special education, qualitative outcomes from a series of projects in six schools will be highlighted. While many aspects of education could be examined, discussion will be limited to discussion around practices that lead to quality educational outcomes (i.e., community, intensity, early intervention). In concluding this discussion, a commentary will be made on how special education contributed to the outcomes of these projects/schools, and the importance of special education in the continued transition to more inclusive practices in schools.

Setting the Scene

The education of students from diverse backgrounds is challenging many education sectors in many countries (e.g., Disability Standards for Education, Australia; IDEA, United States of America). The basis for these challenges has been society’s expectation that students with special education needs will receive an appropriate education. Further, there is an expectation that these programs will be available where possible in the neighbourhood school, where resources and expertise will be made available to students as part of a community of schooling.

The desire to deliver effective education programs for students at-risk educationally due to socio-economic disadvantage, including a high proportion of students with special education needs, resulted in a number of schools in one metropolitan area of Australia receiving funding that would assist them build capacity to meet the needs of their students from a local community perspective. These schools all had links to their school community, and worked with their community to address issues of common concern (e.g., truancy, low levels of literacy).

In this paper, observations from six schools will form the basis of discussion. These schools each received varying amounts funding in addition to regular grants, and specific parameters as to how they could spend it. In each case, the schools were required to work with an academic mentor. The author, an academic mentor in each school, worked with the six schools across a period of one to three years with differing levels of involvement (i.e., duration, intensity). These experiences will form the basis for the following discussions, and reflective commentary on the place of special education in these schools.

Quality Special Education Practice

The concept of special education has been challenged across the past decades. It has been challenged in terms of its practice, place of delivery, method of delivery, and exclusionary nature. In some cases the concept of special education has been challenged as to whether it still exists (Ashman & Elkins, 2002). Despite the suggestions that its existence has been endangered, universities are still enrolling in special education degrees, special educators are still a desired although rare part of schools, governments continue to conduct inquiries into the quality of education for students with special education needs, and conferences like this are still organised and well attended. It is assumed therefore that special education is still alive, needed, but maybe a little lost in space (Kauffman, 1999).

The six schools into which the author was invited provided an excellent base on which to reflect on the concept of special education. Each of these schools was striving to provide the best educational programs they could for all students. In each case, however, staff and school communities were being challenged by the demands from within and outside the setting. These demands included the complex needs of students, the needs of the community, and the resources required to assist the staff and community to address these needs. Each of the schools addressed these needs in differing ways, but in doing so they highlight a number of common themes. These themes included sense of community, intensity, and early intervention.

Sense of community . The sense of community was central to all schools. One school that catered for students with complex educational and medical needs had developed an intricate web of links and relationships with its community. On any day, there was always a small group of people in the school as volunteers, or as persons learning to work with this group of students (e.g., special educators, nurses, therapists). These persons were always welcome, but were always actively encouraged to be part of the school community and programs. Therefore, the school had in place strategies for empowering these visitors to be engaged as quickly as possible (e.g., explicit directions, staff who were welcoming, students who were able to communicate in their own unique way the acceptance of a visitor into their classroom, visual communication strategies).

The use of additional staff in other schools was made possible through the additional monies that flowed as part of differing initiatives. The presence of speech pathology and occupational therapy staff in many schools is a rarity, but highly appreciated by teachers and parents. Their presence as part of an extended community was most apparent in two primary schools that catered for students from disadvantage backgrounds. In these cases, the therapy staff worked closely with teachers to provide support in delivering programs that addressed specific need (e.g., speech and language development for young students, professional knowledge for teachers to use throughout their programs).

In another primary school, the community was engaged through a series of workshops and community events. With a high number of cultural backgrounds in the school, groups were invited to access facilities (e.g., classrooms) and resources (e.g., school counsellors) to address specific issues and needs. In one case a group of parents formed a group so that parents were more aware of how literacy was being promoted in the school and could be supported in the home.

Sense of community was also developed within the school. In one primary school, the school executive piloted a process by which the nominated learning support teachers in the school worked with classroom teachers on a regular basis to assist plan for the diversity of literacy needs in their class. Following an initial trial, the process was instigated across the school. Class teachers and a learning support teacher formally met once every two weeks to discuss planning in the classroom for the next two weeks. Based on the needs of students in the classroom, the learning support teacher then spent time in the classroom team teaching with the classroom teacher, supporting the special education needs of students, and when required assisting early career teachers to develop their professional knowledge.

Staff, indicating that they were better able to support the diverse learning needs in their classroom, positively evaluated the overall process. The planning process permitted them to discuss a range of strategies, highlight specific needs of students, and feel that their work in the classroom was positively supported. In return, the learning support teacher was able to focus specific support where it was required. This support was specific to the needs of students in the classroom, as well as to the need of the classroom teacher.

Establishing a sense of community was important to each of the schools. The way they went about it was based on the resources available, and was dependent on the specific needs of the school. The way in which schools sustained these processes, however, will be dependent on the way they structure future funding, how much they learn from the current experience, and were priority is placed when limited resources impact on them.

Intensity .   The manner in which support programs were implemented varied across the schools worked in. One aspect of program delivery that was of specific focus concerned the intensity of the program implementation. Intensity is closely linked to the quality of programs, and whether programs for students with special education needs are noticeably different to that of other students. Across each of the schools, intensity was represented in differing ways, and schools voiced its presence in the quality of their programs using slightly different paradigms.

In a school that catered for students with high support needs, the intensity of program implementation was visibly different to those programs in the primary schools. The programs in these segregated settings were individualised to specific education, health and social needs of the students. Program implementation was conducted on a one-on-one basis, involved a number of people (e.g., class teacher, aide, therapy staff, volunteers, parents/carers). Whole class programming appeared to occur during community outings and during whole school events.

On the whole, individual programs for each student was delivered in an individualised manner, without link to the programs of other students in the classroom. This method of delivery appeared to influence the intensity of the program delivery, and in the quality of the program. In events when the class teacher and aide were working with students, there were often periods of down time. At other times when there were additional personnel in the class, the intensity of interaction was higher.

In primary school settings involving students from disadvantaged areas, the level of intensity was understandably viewed differently. In one setting the level of intensity was addressed through the manner in which their literacy program was implemented. Using a highly structured literacy program across year levels, the school was able to maximise the engagement of students through a highly sequenced and integrated curriculum, briskly pace instruction and regular monitoring of student learning to ensure high levels of success.

In contrast other schools addressed intensity through increasing the support to teachers in the classroom and/or reducing class sizes. Support to teachers was achieved through employing more learning support teachers to work along side class teachers, often to withdraw students experiencing difficulties learning.

In another example of increasing intensity, the class sizes of Kindergarten classes were reduced to no more than 20 students per class across three classes, instead of 28 students across two classes. The reduction in class sizes in this school, however, came with a review of the literacy program. One aspect of this literacy program was the increased intensity in the way the program was delivered.   This was achieved through each of the three class teachers specialising in one aspect of the literacy program, and delivering this to each literacy group in rotation. Apart from being able to differentiate the literacy program at an instructional level, the class teachers were able to focus their instruction to meet the specific needs of students and groups of students.

The intensity of program delivery for students with special education needs was shown in slightly differing ways across each of the settings. The specific focus on intensity was, however, not something that was specifically discussed most of the schools, and was an ongoing feature of the programs observed that needed further consideration.

Early identification and intervention .   Early intervention at any stage of life to assist prevent later difficulties is receiving increased attention in the literature (National Research Council, 2001; Nelson, Benner & Gonzalez, 2005). The six schools across which the qualitative data were collected for this paper provided evidence of differing levels of early intervention. Interventions included special classes, refined programming and pedagogies, and working with students early to prevent later difficulties occurring.

In one school, it was decided to create a transition class to the first year of formal school, Kindergarten. The class that was created was funded by the additional monies received by the school due to its disadvantage and funded the employment of an early childhood trained teacher. This teacher was given the task of designing and implementing a program that would assist students to adjust to a semi-formal environment, and develop early literacy, numeracy and social skills. By the end of the year this group of thirty young children, attending two or three two hours session per week demonstrated literacy, numeracy and social skills beyond that of the typical group entering Kindergarten. A year on, the school reports that students continue to show in qualitative and quantitative terms, significant advantages from their year in a pre-school environment, and in advance of those students who received no formal preschool year.

In the Kindergarten classes with reduced class number, the teachers worked at providing quality literacy experiences. An aspect of this environment was the use of a screening system for monitoring progress in early reading skills. The use of validated screening measures (Kaminski & Good, 1998) at the beginning of the year, middle of the year and again at the end of the year permitted the staff to monitor overall progress of students.

A third example of early intervention was evident in a school for students with high support needs. This example of early intervention is one that involves older students who are having difficulty with positioning in wheelchairs, and the resultant physical issues that emerge. As a result of poor positioning these students were unable to participate in a number of activities that would assist them to be more independent. Staff in collaboration with the therapy team adjusted their planning schedules to ensure that all students in wheelchairs were reviewed annually for positioning and equipment difficulties. These collaborative planning decisions not only made teachers aware of important health issues for students, it will also allowed greater participation in activities for students outside of the regular classroom.

These three features of practice were only some of the quality practices observed. These practices are important to the ongoing success of students in achieving the most from their educational experiences. In some cases it meant breaking a cycle of disadvantage, for other students it may have meant the difference between full dependence on a carer versus an element of independence in determining a community activity or a personal choice for recreational pleasure. But in terms of contemporary special education practice, it would appear these quality practices, and others, could be fine-tuned to make an even more significant difference.

The following discussion will reflect on the previous observations and discussion in terms of contemporary special education practice. In reflecting on these observations and discussions, an attempt will be made to indicate how these practices link to emerging evidence-based practice in contemporary special education. In addition, comment will be made on how these practices could be further refined and enhanced to meet the special education needs of students. In promoting the use of more refined practices, it will be argued that special education today has an important role to play in the education of students with special educational needs, and that it is time for the profession to step forward to assist the meet the educational needs of these students.

Contemporary Special Education

The definition of contemporary special education is subject to debate. For the purpose of this paper contemporary special education practice will be defined as “… first and foremost, instruction focused on individual need. It is carefully planned. It is intensive, urgent, relentless, and goal directed. It is empirically supported practice, drawn from research.” (Zigmond, 1997, p.385). Heward (2003) furthers this definition stating that special education “ … is focused, intense, urgent, precise, structured and continually monitored for procedural fidelity and effects.”   (Heward, 2003, p.197). From these two definitions, four concepts directly linked to contemporary special education practice were identified for discussion – whole-school initiatives, intensity, progress monitoring, and carefully planned and goal directed programs. Each of these will be discussed in the following section of this paper, with reference to the previous observations.

Whole-school initiatives . The six schools in which observations were undertaken highlighted the importance of whole-school communities needing to harness their energies to assist meet the needs of students. The special schools showed that they required these links into community to assist in meeting the needs of students (e.g., technology access, availability of resources). The primary schools showed that reaching out in the community to develop links could bring a wealth of “riches” that did not involve dollars. The riches were in the form of assistance that was provided (e.g., caring for the school’s appearance), the expertise that could be included in educational programs (e.g., allied health) and the generosity in assisting the community meet daily needs (e.g., donations of basic foods to stock a breakfast club). These activities generated a sense of community, one that was responsive to the needs of the school despite relative financial disadvantage.

The use of community resources is often under estimated by many school communities. They can be used in targeted and focused ways to ensure that scarce monies are not wasted, or the long-term benefits are reaped (e.g., staff professional knowledge). This can be achieved through ensuring planning is focused on student, and that as part of this need the professional knowledge of staff is considered. Through focusing these energies on student need, the monies that are available can result in sustained outcomes for all involved. For example, in all schools challenging behaviour was an issue for staff, parents and other students. A whole-school positive behaviour support project may be one aim to bring everyone together to address issues around behaviour, and develop a longer-term plan to support positive social behaviour in the school community (Lewis & Sugai, 1999).

Instructional intensity .   Observation of classroom instruction was undertaken in a number of classrooms. Teachers in general were receptive to having a visitor in their classroom, and in some cases they were happy for the researcher to get his hands dirty taking classes and modelling some differing ideas. One issue that was discussed on a regular basis was that around the intensity of instruction that was undertaken in the classroom. That is, the pacing of classroom instruction, the planning of lessons to maximise the strategic learning, and the purposefulness in which a lesson was conducted.

Intensity is a core feature of special education (Heward, 2003; Zigmond, 1997), yet comes in differing forms. It was observed that in primary classrooms that intensity of classroom instruction was influence by ongoing and typically common variables. Challenging behaviour in one setting was an ongoing distracter for the teacher, yet when pacing of instruction was increased some of these behaviours were reduced. The teacher, through professional dialogue with peers and the academic partner, made further enhancements to classroom instruction. This included checking the difficulty level of material being covered during instruction, and the pattern of moving throughout the classroom and what they did during this time. The teacher found that they did move from the front of the classroom, so the students at the back tended to be distracted (often due to minimal feedback). This finding required some rethinking by the teacher on how they could move around the room, how they could strategically target unwanted social behaviour, and what type of feedback would engage students productively.

In another environment, the pattern of interacting with students became the focus of teacher reflection. It was apparent that in the classroom there were some students who required specialised assistance, but the teacher was often in the class by themselves catering for about 20 Kindergarten students. Through plotting with the teacher how they could target specific students in regards to specific (early reading) skills, they were able to deliver a more focused and intense form of instruction. This revamped form of instruction also meant that students were engaging this material on a regular basis, and having to bring it to memory on a regular basis. This practice assisted these students to learn critical knowledge as well as learning to access it in a much more efficient manner (Howell & Nolet, 2000).

In a classroom for students with high support needs, engaging students at a high level was often difficult due to the very specialised needs of students, and the individualised planing for each student. Hence, it was interesting to observe the use of flexible staffing arrangements, volunteers and university students on fieldwork experiences. In a music lesson taken by a member of the school executive with four students with high support needs, there was the class teacher, a local community college student, and the teaching assistant. Through each person working with a student, they were able to develop a very focused, high intensity music lesson. This lesson also showed that other elements of each student’s individual program were covered – physical movement exercises/stretches, communication skills, language development, and numeracy skills. This strategic integration of curriculum areas allowed for maximum intensity to be achieved, while also strengthening skills learned in other curriculum domains (Kame’enui, Carnine, Dixon, Simmons & Coyne, 2002; Simmons & Kame’enui, 1996).

Progress monitoring .   The monitoring of student progress is a teaching behaviour that is correlated with effective teaching (Deno, 2003; Howell & Nolet, 2000). In all schools students were assessed and decisions made by teachers – in most cases this was done with little fuss, and the decisions were recorded in the professional make-up of the teacher.

A number of the schools in which observations took place formal evaluations of special programs were required as part of special funding agreements. As a result these schools investigated alternate forms of assessment that would allow them to evaluate their programs, as well as monitor the progress of students. In at least three primary schools, they turned to the use of curriculum-based measures (Kaminski & Good, 1998).

In each school the curriculum-based measures were used to monitor early reading development. These measures focused on assessing dynamic indicators of early reading success using time and cost efficient protocols. These data collected were used to monitor the progress of all students, and then to report the effects of a specific program to parents, staff and the professional community. In one school, these measures had a marked impact in a number of ways. First, the success of the program they had developed was shown over the period of three years to have made a marked impact. Teachers in the Year 1 classes commented on more than one occasion how the students from Kindergarten were so much more prepared for engaging in complex reading behaviours than previous years.

An issue that came out of this experience was that there were still ten percent of students failing to make minimum standards. The curriculum-based measures used to assess the overall success of the program were then used to support a new initiative – more frequent monitoring of progress in early reading for students at-risk. Therefore, those students who were noted to be experiencing difficulty in learning early reading skills (e.g., segmenting fluency, letter-sound fluency), are now monitored on a regular basis to ensure progress is being maintained. This adjustment in program implementation, and the differential use of these measures based on student need, shows that special education principles have a strong hold on what was considered to be a regular education setting. This decision to use the measures differentially was arrived at, though, through prompting and affirmation from the teacher in the school with special education knowledge and when class teachers were ready to move forward in their professional learning.

Focused and goal direct programs .   The previous three points of discussion contribute to the quality of the education program in a range of settings. An attribute of programs observed that was not as obvious surrounded the issue of focus. There was a constant question in the back of the observer’s mind as to exactly what was the goal of this program or instructional session, and is the program being implemented focused on meeting specific student’ goals.

Evidence that programs were focused on student need indicated that teachers and schools had all elements of the program aligned. For example, the Kindergarten literacy program with reduced class size implemented a program was clearly aligned – clear goals which students were to achieve (using a formative progress monitoring process), teachers who promoted professional understanding amongst each other, clearly articulated programs of work that could be adjusted to meet the needs of students, intense and effective instruction processes in place, and the belief that they could make a difference. Evidence available indicated that these teachers were highly successful in achieving their clearly set goals. Further, this alignment has resulted in them working on how they can do better for those hard to reach students (or 10% of students).

The focus of programs in some cases was unclear. One hypothesis was that teachers and schools had set expectations that were not clear, or possibly too low. As a result programs were not focused or goal direct as the instruction tended to meander. Those students with the most need in these cases not only did not make the “low expectations”, there appeared to be no urgency to address situation.   In one example, a realignment of school expectations and professional development resulted in noticeable changes in this area. One observation of these changes was that staff attitudes were positively influenced, providing a reciprocal benefit to members of the school community.

Another hypothesis was that some practices were not refined enough to permit students to benefits from their impact. For example, monitoring processes that were not well established or not standardised. As a result, consistency of judgement and evaluation was weakened and the focus of class and individual program was too broad. These features of effective special education practice have been promoted over the years (Deno, 2003), and if students with special education needs are to be catered for in any setting these practices need to be well developed for students to benefit (Zigmond, 2003).

Conclusion

Special education in the year 2005 needs to model quality education practice that is inclusive of all students. In this reflection of the past three years observing in schools has shown that this is possible – typically with the gentle hand of a special educator. For example, using the curriculum-based measures lead to their refined use across all students, at differing levels of intensity. This practice was inclusive, and did not require wholesale adjustments for each student in the classroom.

In another feature of these observations, the use of community was paramount in the survival of the schools. The use of community by some schools was intense, in one case accessing over thirty services within the local community to assist meet the needs of students in the school – at very little financial cost to families and the school. In knowing these resources were available, schools then began to access them in a timely manner to prevent difficulties escalating, and allow special interests flourish.

The use of early intervention practices was one that seemed to be talked about in the early years of these observations, but became a reality by year three. The smell of success in two settings resulted in the early intervention mechanism fostering further desire for staff and community to do more for students – more professional learning, and great awareness of what could be done on an everyday basis.

In the regular primary school settings, highlighting practices like early intervention, intensity of instruction, interlinking with community and working in teams as central to special education was met with “its just good practice”. While this may be the perception, it was also worth noting that the teachers with the special education background were there to guide the process. In these cases, the need to say “this is good special education practice” was not required, as the success of students and staff was enough reinforcement. In cases where the outcomes for students and staff were not as positive, or were of a degree that was “disappointing”, specific elements of practice were observed to be compromised to some degree. This was typically through not monitoring a student’s progress frequently enough, practice was applied inconsistently (e.g., behaviour management strategies, progress monitoring), or there was not common agreement on was what to be carried out (e.g., program implementation, consistency of judgement/assessment).

To the suggestion that special is “just good practice”, it would appear that it is more than that. When the special needs of students were met, it appeared to be due to effective instructional practices (Zigmond, 2003), including the intensity of the program, the careful monitoring of student progress towards clearly set goals, and the support of communities in meeting common goals. It was apparent that setting was not a variable that impacted on this conclusion.

In concluding, it is put forward that special education is not lost in space, but is central to success of education programs across all settings. The close proximity of regular education and special education settings does not mean that other practices have to be watered down to look like each other. In many cases it would appear that intensity of application is the difference; in other cases it would appear that working together as a community, recognising the strengths of each other is paramount. Whatever way, the skills and knowledge of the special eductor were observed to be vital to successful outcomes for students across all settings.

References

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Heward, W. (2003). Ten faulty notions about teaching and learning that hinders the effectiveness of special education, Journal of Special Education, 36, 186-205.

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National Research Council (2001). Educating children with autism. Washington, DC: National Academic Press.

Nelson, J., Benner, G., & Gonzalez, J. (2005). An investigation of the effects of a prereading intervention on the early literacy skills of children at risk of emotional disturbance and reading problems. Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, 13, 3-12.ß

Odom, S. (2003). A unified theory of practice in early intervention/early childhood special education: Evidence-based practices. Journal of Special Education, 37(3), 164-173.

Vaughn, S, & Linan-Thompson, S. (2003). What is special about special education for students with learning disabilities? Journal of Special Education, 37(3), 140-147.

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Zigmond, N. (1997). Educating students with disabilities: The future of special education. In J. Lloyd, E. Kameenui, & D. Chard (Eds.), Issues in educating students with disabilities. Mahwah, NJ:   Lawrence Erlbaum.

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