The word “special” when is mentioned, stirs positive vibes and high expectations in almost everyone. But once the word education is added to it, the whole thing changes, people move from high expectations to pity, sympathy, disappointment, disdain, or irritation.

Orofin Oluwatosin

Special Education is simply the practice of education that put into consideration individual differences and the special needs of learners for easy teaching and learning experience.
This individual differences and special needs put into consideration by special Education are a result of a dysfunction in either one or more physical (sensory) abilities or psychological abilities. This means that those who receive special educational services aren’t less human. They just do not possess all that the regular individual need to learn in a general education system hence, another kind of educational system to soothe their peculiarity(s). This is where the word “disability” is used.
This kind of educational practice was introduced to teach persons with physiological or psychological disabilities.
According to Futernick in 2006, Disabilities create very special needs for individuals, their families, and the education system. Teachers and other educators can help students achieve their potential by addressing their special needs, by providing them with many opportunities for learning and for success, and by ensuring they receive a high-quality educational experience in order to succeed at school. Teachers who are well-prepared, use proven practices and instructional procedures, and provide students with additional assistance or accommodations do make real differences in the educational lives of these students.
Only individuals with special needs are eligible for Special Education services though this differs from person to person as there different types of disabilities. Disabilities can be classified into: The low incidence disabilities: These kind of disabilities are mostly the physiological disabilities examples includes visual impairment, hearing loss, deaf-blindness, and significant cognitive impairment, orthopaedic impairments, or multiple disabilities. Individuals with low-incidence disabilities compose a small percentage of the population of individuals with disabilities. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Acts (IDEA) they constitute about 30% of the population of persons with special needs.
Some students with special needs (physical disabilities) may require minimal special education services because they excel favourable as they learn the content of the general curriculum alongside their peers who are without physical disabilities because they don’t have cognitive abnormalities like down syndrome. These students may need assistance or accommodations, such as special floor mats so their wheelchairs can glide easily into the school building or the classroom. There are also cases where students who have a disability and special needs, but are not special education students because their disability does not negatively affect their educational performance. For example, a case of missing lower limps needs a wheelchair and a ramp to navigate through storey buildings in a learning environment but the missing limps do not affect the cognitive processes of such individual.
Some physical disabilities do result in the need for special education services—possibly from an occupational therapist and an assistive technologist—to reduce the impact of the disability on learning.
High incidence of disabilities are disabilities that cannot be easily recognised until observations and assessments are done. Students with special needs of High incidence disabilities are often hard to distinguish from students without special needs, especially in non-school settings. This class of disabilities is often psychological examples includes: Learning disability, Speech or Language impairment, a mild to moderate intellectual disability, emotional or behavioural disorder. According to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Acts (IDEA) they constitute about 70% of the population of persons with disabilities. Through therapy, highly structured interventions and assistive technologies Students with special needs of High incidence disabilities will thrive.
Students with special needs of high incidence disabilities often display a combination of academic, social and behavioural problems. They can meet same standards as students without disabilities when highly structured interventions are put into place.
Special Education is a field of education that requires the expertise of professionals to give the child with special needs the maximum assistance needed for success. Some of these Professionals includes: Audiologist, Speech therapist, Occupational therapist, Physical therapist, Special Educator, Psychologist, psychiatrist, Optician, Optometrist, Behavioural therapist, Nutritionist and so many others which are due to the peculiarity of the disability. : Audiologist, Speech therapist, Occupational therapist, Physical therapist, Special Educator, Psychologist, psychiatrist, Optician, Optometrist, Behavioural therapist,
Early intervention is the best remedial step parents of children with Special needs can take. Many parents at first either live in denial or go to prayer houses to seek spiritual intervention, thereby wasting time and making the condition of the child deteriorate. Early intervention is systematically organised services that promote and facilities the child’s age-appropriate growth and development. These systemic approaches when provided at the developmental stage of the child equip the child with skills and strategies that make up for the disability.
There are different kinds of educational placement made for persons with special needs to enjoy special education services. Placement like Special school, special classroom in a regular school, Services of an itinerant teacher, Resource room services, Inclusive education(Inclusion).
In the 21 century Inclusive education is what is strongly advocated for as it breaks the wall of discrimination and gives the child with special needs the same educational and social interaction opportunity that a child without special needs will enjoy.
Inclusive education simply means all children in the same classroom in the same school. This fosters the social interaction of children with special and children without special needs. With inclusive education, labelling reduced to its minimum, the school environment, and architectural design is disability-friendly.
The West Africa Examination Council has put in place policies that accommodate students with physical disabilities. But overall, no examination body in Nigeria has put policies in place to aid the students with Specific learning disabilities like dyscalculia, ADHD, dysorthography and so on or mild to moderate intellectual disabilities. However, the Nigerian national policy on education advocates inclusive education, only a few schools as it is capital intensive.
It is very important to note that it is impolite to address an individual with special needs with the name of the disability. That is, you can’t say “the blind boy”, you ought to say “the boy with visual Impairment”. In the same way, they are not being addressed as disabled or handicapped, they are addressed as persons with special needs.