About Special Education
by Lorraine McCune, Ph.D.

There was a time when students with disabilities received no education at all. The state of New Jersey by passing laws proposed by a state legislator named Beadleston in the mid 20th century led the nation in guaranteeing the right of all NJ students to a free public education. Before that time children with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy and other disabilities often either received no services or were consigned to institutional care. Since the mid 1980’s federal law has guaranteed educational services for all children with disabilities from birth, with states allowed to determine the form and extent of such services in the preschool years.

The amazing result of this national policy has been that children receiving services in early intervention programs are developing the competence to join their peers in inclusive classrooms by kindergarten time, often eliminating the stigma that so often is attached to those who are “special”. At Rutgers University we have developed the Infant/Early Childhood Specialist Interdisciplinary Studies Certificate Program (ISIS) to provide specialized knowledge to students who will do research or provide services to infants, young children and their families. Through teaching in this program I learn about the tremendous gains and tremendous problems my students (many of them teachers) encounter in their professional lives. Let me focus on the positive.

Children with autism have long been considered unsociable, unable to play, and limited in language ability, the most difficult students to teach. Now autism is considered to be a “spectrum” of disorders, with children displaying various levels of symptoms. Children receiving early intervention, especially intervention that helps build their relationships with parents and peers now stand a good chance of taking part in all aspects of school life, including peer relationships. We are sometimes told that these are the “high functioning” children, but their high functioning may be an outcome of their early experience. The “magic” of early intervention is that it takes advantage of the plasticity of the developing brain and occurs before learned hopelessness and helplessness invade the child and family.

Inclusion of children with disabilities in regular classrooms is now the law, except in rare cases where such placement would be detrimental to the child’s education or well-being. Regular teachers have resisted these placements, pleading lack of training and overcrowding. These situations still occur and limit the success of all children involved. But more and more school districts seem to be providing the support of special education teachers within the full inclusion classroom, offering opportunities for teamwork and learning for both adults and better opportunities for all children.

Gradually the magic of early intervention is creeping up the grade levels. Children with disabilities who have been helped to learn and grow during infancy and early childhood are more ready to learn in elementary classrooms. In my classes now I hear more from teachers who are wanting to figure out how to enhance the learning and social development of their included students than I do from teachers who are frightened by lack of knowledge and lack of support. I see teachers who are being transformed by their relationships with their students. As I have said before, they are all “all of our children.”#

Dr. Lorraine McCune is a professor at the Rutgers University Graduate School of Education and serves as advisor to educational toy company, General Creation. She can be reached at generalcreation.com in the “Ask Dr. McCune” section.

Name:- E-mail: City: State: Comments:

Education Update, Inc., P.O. Box 1588, New York, NY 10159.
Tel: (212) 477-5600. Fax: (212) 477-5893. Email: ednews1@aol.com.
All material is copyrighted and may not be printed without express consent of the publisher. © 2003.