Ideally, schooling at the primary and secondary levels should be designed for all students. In practice, instruction in elementary and high schools is planned for the majority of students, and most are able to learn with little difficulty. Some students, however, can only learn to read, write, do mathematics, work, and get along with others by receiving special help that is not needed by the majority. These students are classified as exceptional children because they deviate mentally, physically, emotionally, or socially from those who are regarded as average children.

In the United States some 10 to 12 percent of all teenage students fall into the category of exceptional children. They need special teaching and other support to help them learn and prepare for adulthood. This need stems in most cases from general or special learning difficulties resulting from physical or emotional impairment, from communication problems, or from social maladjustment. The exception in this classification is the unusually gifted child. Students of especially high intelligence may also need extra teaching or support to expand and use their capabilities to the fullest extent. Their needs for such support, however, stem from reasons completely opposite from those of other exceptional children.

Exceptional Learning Needs

Children in need of special education fall into several categories that are related to the children's specific handicaps or needs. These categories include mental retardation, sensory handicaps, orthopaedic handicaps, neurological disorders, problems in communication, learning disabilities, social and emotional maladjustment, and unusually high intelligence. Most of these conditions do not necessarily involve a diminished capacity to learn, but they nevertheless require special teaching programs.

Mental retardation. A severely diminished ability to learn can have several causes. One of the most common is a congenital birth defect that inhibits brain development. Such a defect can be transmitted by inheritance, infection, or accident. One of the most serious such conditions is Down's syndrome. Also called mongolism, it is characterized by distinctive facial and bodily features, malformations of the heart and kidneys, and moderate to severe mental retardation. The child's normal life span is also shortened.

The learning ability of the mentally retarded seems to be much below average. Such persons are normally classified as educable or trainable. The educable are those who can profit from schooling up to the level of an average child of from 9 to 11 years of age. They are able to adjust socially both at home and in society, and they can be trained in self-supporting occupations.

Teenagers at a school for the trainable mentally retarded play physical-therapy games. -- Elizabeth Crews Stock, Boston

The trainable are less intelligent. They can be taught self-care, including feeding and dressing. They can gain some social adjustment at home and in their immediate neighbourhoods, and they can often be taught to do routine work in a sheltered environment. Below this level of trainability are the mentally retarded who are completely dependent and are usually institutionalized in residential hospitals for life.

Sensory handicaps. This classification includes children who have impaired vision or hearing. Impairment of eyesight ranges from total blindness to partial sight. It does not include vision problems that can easily be corrected with eyeglasses. Apart from total blindness, a child is considered legally blind if vision in the better eye is 20/200 after corrective measures have been taken. The partially sighted include children whose vision in the better eye is less than 20/70 after correction. Visually handicapped students require special teaching materials and methods, but they do not necessarily require classrooms separate from other children.

Like vision impairment, hearing loss ranges from total deafness to partial hearing. Children who are deaf need schooling that depends almost wholly on their eyesight. Learning a language is especially difficult for hearing-impaired students because they are never able to hear how sounds are formed. To such children, letters and words are only visual signs. Children who are hard of hearing can profit from the use of hearing aids and can be schooled in regular classes.

Orthopaedic handicaps. This term refers to problems resulting from malformation of the bones and difficulties with joints or muscles. Examples of orthopaedic-ally handicapped children include those born with dislocated hips or other joints, club feet, spina bifida (a congenital malformation of the spinal cord), and children who are victims of such crippling diseases as polio, osteomyelitis, or tuberculosis of the bones or joints. Such children may require enrolment in special-education programs, as may children with heart problems, tuberculosis, or chronic illnesses.

Neurological impairment. Diseases or breakdowns of the central nervous system present problems similar to those caused by orthopaedic handicaps. Cerebral palsy is the most common impairment of the nervous system. Because the disorder involves the body's neuro-motor functions, its effects may be partially crippling. Physical coordination is diminished, and there may be deficiencies in eyesight, hearing, and speech. There need not be any loss of ability to learn, however. In fact many people with cerebral palsy have successfully pursued professional careers.

Epilepsy is a neurological condition that can cause convulsions in which the epileptic experiences a total temporary loss of motor coordination. Medical advances have made it possible to control epileptic seizures through the use of drugs, so that most epileptics can lead normal and productive lives. The condition does not induce a lessened ability to learn.

Communication problems. If an individual's speaking ability differs from the average person's enough to draw unfavourable attention to the speaker, it may require correction. Defects include delayed or slow speech, stuttering, and disorders caused by cerebral palsy, cleft palate, or hearing loss.

It is not unusual for children who are learning their native language to experience a period during which words are spoken hesitantly or speech flow is irregular. If it continues, this interruption in the smooth flow of speech is known as dis-fluency. The longer a person uses dis-fluent speech, the harder it is to correct.

Some children have articulation problems that is, they fail to learn accurate speech sounds. Articulation difficulties can be corrected by special instruction unless they are caused by physical conditions such as cerebral palsy or a cleft palate. Then they may require medical treatment, including surgery.

Learning disabilities. This rather vague-sounding term actually refers to several quite specific learning problems. Dyslexia, for instance, is a difficulty in reading in which the person perceives individual characters, words, or sentences in reverse. This is one of several conditions called perceptual aphasias. (The word aphasia, from the Greek, literally means "lack of speech.") Individuals with perceptual aphasias can see perfectly well but do not adequately recognize what they see. Other aphasias cause problems in sounding words or in writing. Although these disabilities are brain-generated, they do not involve mental retardation. They are also not sensory disorders.

Social and emotional disorders. Some children seem unable or unwilling to adjust to normal standards of human behaviour. This type of disorder may result from mental problems ranging from simple anxiety to neurosis or psychosis, or it may be a matter of social maladjustment in which a child becomes aggressive and defiant of all authority. Some children may be well adjusted to their peer groups but hostile to society as a whole.

The most serious such disorder is called autism. The autistic child is unresponsive, completely preoccupied with himself, and withdrawn from reality. The condition is sometimes considered a variety of schizophrenia. Unless the child outgrows the condition, it becomes totally disabling and schooling to deal with it is almost impossible.

Gifted sixth-grade students in a Chicago school set off a model rocket they have made as a science-class project. -- Kevin Horan Picture Group

Very young gifted children study French in grade school. -- Kevin Horan Stock, Boston

The gifted. Some children function at levels far in advance of their schoolmates. They are children who achieve scores above 125 on IQ tests, though such scores are not the only deciding factor. The problem that educators face in dealing with gifted children is how to provide a sufficient challenge to occupy their minds so that the children do not become bored and fail to reach their full potential.

Gifted children learn to speak and read earlier in life than do other children. They remember more of what they read and develop larger vocabularies. They make more use of libraries, museums, and other information resources. Often, finding school dull, they work on their own projects. They frequently find it rewarding to spend time with others of high ability, regardless of age. They are sometimes admitted to college programs at an unusually early age because no other level of schooling is appropriate for them.

The Scope of Special Education

The goals of special education are the same as those of education for normal children to teach each child up to the level of the child's abilities. In some cases this means teaching precisely the same material as is taught in regular classrooms. In other cases it means tailoring the material to the abilities of the child.

Diagnosis. No two children are identical even two with the same handicap. It is necessary to diagnose each case more thoroughly than simply classifying a child according to his deviation from normal standards. Diagnosis is done through IQ testing and psychological evaluation. Children with sensory, orthopaedic, or neurological handicaps are examined by medical personnel. Learning disabilities can be assessed by educational or psychological specialists.

School authorities are often the first to recognize a socially or emotionally handicapped student and to alert the parents to their child's disorder. Such children may then be referred to psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, or social workers. These specialists can determine the type of school program most suitable for a handicapped student. With the socially handicapped, it is often a question of deciding upon the right type of motivation needed in classroom work.

The range of programs. Just as the achievement goals in special education seek to approximate the normal, so too do the programs themselves try to create a learning environment that is as close to normal as possible. The ideal is to place the exceptional child in a regular classroom with normal children for all of his schooling. The opposite extreme for children who demand full-time care in addition to schooling is to place the child in a residential hospital.

Between these extremes is an array of possibilities. Closest to the ideal is the use of a regular classroom situation with the addition of special teaching assistants or specialists to provide individualized instruction to exceptional children. Sometimes, besides the regular classroom, there is a resource room that has special equipment for the visually or hearing impaired, the physically disabled, or the educable mentally retarded.

In cases where the full-time use of a regular classroom is inappropriate, many schools offer part-time special classes. Some schools set up full-time special classes on the premises. Such classes for the gifted, the mentally retarded, the blind or deaf, and children with other handicaps exist throughout the world. The advantage of full-time special classes is that they allow the child to live at home and attend a neighbourhood school, or at least a school in the same city.

The next step away from the normal classroom is the special school. This may be a day school or a residential institution. Day schools are organized for one or more types of handicap. Such schools also exist in all parts of the world. There are, for example, schools for the blind, deaf, and mentally retarded in nearly every state of the United States. Children who attend these schools live at home and are usually transported to and from school by bus.

For children who cannot obtain the schooling they require in their own communities, there are residential schools with dormitories and dining halls that enrol children on a 24-hour-a-day basis. These schools are designed to serve children who do not have access to normal services or whose handicap makes it difficult for them to adapt to a regular school. Residential schools for the blind, deaf, mentally retarded, and physically handicapped are the most common. Similarly, some hospitals have schools for children who are confined for lengthy periods of time. This enables the children to keep up with their courses while away from home. For severely handicapped children, there are residential hospitals supported by the state or by charitable institutions.

Among those handicapped children who are not mentally retarded, the most specialized techniques are required for teaching the deaf and blind. Deaf children are at a greater disadvantage than the blind in learning to speak, read, and write, and this naturally affects their other learning experiences. Their learning is done mostly by visual methods, though touch is also involved. For example, deaf students are taught to "hear" by learning lip reading, and they usually learn to speak by using sign language. By contrast, hard-of-hearing children normally attend regular classes, while receiving help from specialists in speech correction and speech reading. For students wishing to enter higher education, the United States has the world's only liberal arts college for the deaf Gallaudet University in Washington, D.C. In the same city, the Model Secondary School for the Deaf, established by the federal government, offers education at the high-school level.

Children from the Kentucky School for the Blind visit a zoo in Louisville. They are using their sense of touch to learn what a goat looks like. -- Michael Hayman Stock, Boston

Blind teenagers in a sex-education class feel models of a fetus in order to learn the normal features of a developing human. -- Edith G. Haun Stock, Boston

Classes and schools for the blind teach through the senses of hearing and touch. Books and other materials are in Braille, a code of dots that blind people can read by passing their fingers over the page line by line. Much of the reading material is published by the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville, Ky. Nearly every state has a day school or a residential school for the blind.

A person whose hands are paralyzed by cerebral palsy can learn to use a computer with an aid attached to a head halter. -- Charles Feil Stock, Boston

Children who are handicapped by cerebral palsy or some other cause can learn normally unless they are affected by another disability. To help them cope with a school environment, however, they need special equipment wheelchairs, modified desks, and some apparatus to help them take notes and manipulate classroom materials. They also need a good deal of emotional support from their families and fellow students, because typical teenagers tend to isolate those they regard as different.

Mainstreaming. One of the current trends in special education is known as mainstreaming. This term refers to the technique of schooling handicapped students in the "least restrictive environment" that is, educating them in the most normal way possible, preferably by placing them in classes with normal children. Some handicapped students are able to attend these regular classes on a full-time basis and can learn to adjust to the mainstream of society as rapidly as possible.

As part of this mainstreaming trend, handicapped children are entered in school at an earlier age than is the average child. Those children with learning difficulties need more help at a younger age than do children who learn at the normal rate. A child who has difficulty walking, for example, may need extra help to learn to walk at an age when other children are already walking well. Without the early special assistance, the handicapped child could drop behind and miss many of the experiences other children of the same age enjoy. While schooling usually begins at age 5 or 6 for normal children, it may begin at age 3 for a handicapped child.

Persons with learning difficulties may also need special help after they finish school and become adults. They may need assistance in learning about employment opportunities. A job coach can help such a person learn about the world of work and can encourage employers to take a favourable attitude toward hiring the handicapped.

Historical Background

Modern special education got its start in Spain during the 16th century with classes for the deaf. Pedro Ponce de Leon was able to teach deaf students to speak, read, and write. A successor of Leon, Juan Pablo Bonet, adopted the same methods and published a book on the subject in 1620. The success of teaching the deaf in Spain soon roused interest in the problem throughout Europe. In France, in the 18th century, the abbey de l'Epee, Charles-Michel, developed a sign language for the deaf for use both as a means of teaching and for ordinary conversation.

Attempts to educate the blind were not undertaken until the end of the 18th century. The first outstanding teacher was Valentin Hauy of France, who has been called the "father and apostle of the blind." He opened an institute for blind children in Paris in 1784. Following his success, similar schools were established over the next 25 years in Liverpool, Vienna, London, Berlin, Amsterdam, and Zurich. Schools for the blind were founded in Boston, Mass., and New York City in 1832.

Attempts to teach the mentally retarded also started in France, but not until the early 19th century. The first significant efforts were made by a physician named Jean-Marc-Gaspard Itard, who had devoted much time and money to teaching deaf-mutes. His now-classic book, 'The Wild Boy of Aveyron' (1801), tells how he succeeded in educating an uncivilized 11-year-old boy who had been found living in a forest. Itard's work was taken up by Edouard Seguin, a French psychiatrist. He opened a school for the mentally retarded in 1839 that became internationally known. In 1848 he immigrated to the United States. There he founded the Seguin Psychological School in Orange, N.J. His work, in turn, influenced Maria Montessori, one of the most widely acclaimed innovators in modern schooling.

In the United States, the first public-school programs for children with learning handicaps were a class for the deaf in Boston in 1869 and a class for difficult and truant boys in New York City in 1874. In 1874 a class for the mentally retarded was begun in Cleveland, Ohio. A class for the blind began in Chicago in 1896, and three years later a class for the physically handicapped opened there.

During the first half of the 20th century, special education became more common in schools across the United States. It usually consisted of separate classes or special schools for the handicapped.

The screening of personnel for military service in both world wars called the government's attention to the relatively high number of physically or otherwise unfit persons. The number of individuals turned down by the armed services prompted the government to take up the issue of special education.

The White House Conference on Children in 1929 helped make education for the handicapped a national priority. Unfortunately, promotion of the effort was delayed by the Great Depression and World War II. By the 1950s, parents of mentally handicapped children sought programs for these children in the public schools of all communities. In 1958 Congress passed legislation to assist teacher training for the retarded. In 1966 a Bureau of Education for the Handicapped was set up within what is now the Department of Education. Subsequent laws provided for additional assistance and other programs.

What was becoming a haphazard approach to special education was reorganized in 1968 by the Education of the Handicapped Act. That act was amended in 1975, and by the mid-1970s nearly every state legislature had passed laws requiring public schools to educate every handicapped child. The Special Education and Rehabilitative Services office of the Department of Education now oversees special-education programs and services for handicapped children.

Careers in Special Education

Because of the diversity of handicaps encountered in special-education programs, teacher training in the colleges tends to be specialized. Teaching the deaf or blind, for example, is such a demanding task that the student teacher must be prepared to take a heavy load of courses in a fairly narrow field of expertise. College students planning to be teachers normally major in education, with an emphasis on a single disorder, such as speech therapy or physical therapy. In addition to courses in education they will also take courses in the sciences related to the handicap in which they are specializing. Readers interested in learning about careers in special education should consult one of the catalogues that evaluate colleges and graduate programs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION

Berdine, W.H. and Blackhurst, A.E. An Introduction to Special Education (Little, 1981).

Clements, John. Severe Learning Disability and Psychological Handicap (Wiley, 1987).

Coles, Gerald. The Learning Mystique (Pantheon, 1987).

Council for Exceptional Children. Careers in Service to Exceptional Individuals (Council for Exceptional Children, 1985).

Dunn, L.M., ed. Exceptional Children in the Schools (Holt, 1963).

Halsted, J.W. Guiding Gifted Readers (Ohio Psychology Publishing Co., 1988).

Jordan, J.B., ed. Teacher, Please Don't Close the Door (Council for Exceptional Children, 1976).

Marquis Academic Media. Yearbook of Special Education (Marquis Who's Who, 1975).