Special needs education is incredibly important. Every child deserves equal access to a good education, but some need more accommodation than others. A special needs education can provide those accommodations for students with special needs like autism, down syndrome, and other special needs. These special needs programs can still be rigorous and challenging while still accounting for whatever disability a student might be dealing with. Some special needs education programs are entire separate schools while others are simply a separate classroom within a public, mainstream school. Both types of programs offer benefits to the student, but some may be best suited to one over the other.
Special needs education was not always a given right. In fact, the laws surrounding special needs education that says that every child must be accommodated for were only enacted in 1977. Since then, however, the amount of students served has gone up by an astounding 81%.
Children with learning disabilities face a number of hurdles that other children do not. Outside of their struggles to learn, children with some kind of learning disability are around 45% more likely to face bullying, according to a survey done of parents of students with learning disabilities. 66% of these same parents said that they felt that children with learning disabilities were more likely to be bullied than other children because of this learning disability. Unfortunately, almost half of these parents also felt that the schools their child was in did not test adequately enough to determine the presence of a learning disability accurately, meaning that some children might not be getting the specialized attention that they need in order to learn.
In these cases, it might be beneficial for parents of children with learning disabilities to look into private schools. Private schools typically have more funding than many public schools and are often much smaller. In fact, the typical private school only has around 300 students total, meaning smaller class sizes and more individualized attention for students with special needs. Private schools for special needs children are also an option. These schools are totally devoted to special needs education and can provide support for education that one third of parents of special needs children do not feel prepared to give on their own.
The future is bright for children with special needs and learning disabilities because of widespread access to special needs education. For children who learn differently, there is better access to individualized care than ever before.