Early Childhood Special Education Roots Essay Example for Free

Early Childhood Special educational do workivity Roots try onEarly childhood limited education that is ruled today has a varied and sometimes bad won history. Its roots are entangled in cultural, economic, and idealistic influences each facet tinged by the grim lens of the times and adding a little glint to modern day practices. The conglomeration of historical theories and practices, policy-making actions and enacted laws has paved the way to modern early on childhood special(prenominal) education practices and computer programming. Just like a child learns and builds on his lie withledge and understanding of his environment, so too does the practice of early childhood special education. In its infancy ECSE was not labeled as such, and in fact was simply teaching. passim history, some(prenominal) educators have had differing perspectives and opinions on how best to educate children. many an other(a)(prenominal) of those ideas and practices have popularly endured , and some have start out very small portions of our menstruation systems, or faded into obscurity altogether. One of the earliest models on early childhood education was the Montessori model. The Montessori methods and tools are prevalent in classrooms today, from individualized and sensory programming to didactic acquisition materials.Other early educators realized that even very vernal children benefit from instruction. Jean Pi epocht identified stages of using from make to adolescence that still assist educators in identifying appropriate modes of teaching. Others like Robert Owen, John Locke and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky theorized that a childs environment had a profound influence on his/her development and education, giving a foundation for current early intervention strategies in devoid, urban battlegrounds.Vygotsky withal gifted to forward generations the theories of the Zone of Proximal Development, hold and ideas about special needs students working in least restri ctive environments. All the way from these LREs, are the ideas of institutions. The residential school model how eer is still useful in some ways today. Samuel Gridley Howe and Dorothea Dix use supportive, residential schools for children with disabilities, but when the First World War had its grips on the country, the schools deteriorated into holding cells that pervaded until throughout the depression era. regime and societal situations have always been instigators of change for education. Post World War II, many war veterans returned shell with disabilities changing the attitudes and urgency in servicing individuals with special needs, spurring a profusion of financial and program support. Moving into the mid-20th Century, civil rights opened a consciousness about not only race, but also a socioeconomic dichotomy. Project Head Start was federally funded compensatory program, with a focus on aiding the impoverished it would later evolve into a more comprehensive program for seek ing and aiding special needs children and families.Many other programs and studies aimed at supporting young children with disabilities and their families began to appear, including Early Head Start, the Carolina Abecedarian Project and the Perry Preschool Project, among others. These programs and research studies aimed at aiding and reinforcing the importance of early intervention for at risk children. Supporting and preemptively averting the struggles brought on by environmental disadvantages made the transition to special education support logical.With the social climate changing and an awareness of adult male rights, rule regarding special needs populations was ripe. Perhaps the greatest catalyst to change was the enactment of PL 94-142 the Individuals with Disabilities Education locomote of 1975. The foundations of this public law and the following amendments are the backbone of all special education as we know it today. This law has 6 main areas of concern. First, the right to a free and appropriate public education is bestowed. Throughout the coming decades, interpretation of FAPE comes up in many court cases, each ruling setting antecedence for the future.Second, children with disabilities are given the right to learn in the least restrictive environment (LRE) a practice from centuries prior, but with legal backing, changed the model of public schools in this country. An Individualized Education Plan was written into the be of the IDEA, giving specific protocol for supporting the learning of each individual student. This item is the true workhorse of special education classrooms, bringing the students goals, objectives and educational plan, the educators, parents and the other support staff together in one document.The fourth premise of the IDEA is the guarantee to guardians of procedural due process, retaining the guardians rights regarding notices, evaluations, placements and other educational plans. Unbiased and multiple assessment criteria is the 5th area addressed in the IDEA. Lastly, part of the legislation includes the parents of special needs students, by affording them access to related work that would benefit the student. cogitate services was and is an area for interpretation, and again, many court cases have been tried and decided creating standards for what qualifies as a related service.Aside from these sextet main points, the IDEA has outlined much more. IDEA has given us a universal mental synthesis for classifying disabilities, and in a 1991 amendment, ruled that an umbrella categorisation for preschool aged children was acceptcapable and malleable state to state. This meant that children would not have to be prematurely labeled or stigmatized, when proper assessment was yet to be exacted. This law gave rise to the term developmentally delayed. A preschooler and his/her family could receive services under the classification of developmentally delayed.IDEA has also given individual states the leeway to d efine and exact methods of determining what developmentally delayed means. While culturally and regionally more specific, this leaves a large range of differences in qualifications across the country. Since its inception, individuals with special needs have reaped many benefits from the laws and boundaries set by the IDEA, but it wasnt until October 1986 that very young special needs children and their families could be guaranteed services. While grants and incentives for states to serve the preschool population were available, participation in those programs were completely voluntary.The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments, or PL 99-457, passed in October 1986, mandated that all special needs preschoolers between the ages of three and louvre be provided with a FAPE . This law was enacted with the purpose of enabling early intervention and a cost stiff preventative strategy to serving special populations. Part C of this law also makes services for infants, birth to age tw o voluntary. Adding preschoolers to the population of compulsory service made the use of IFSP or Individualized Family wait on Plans prevalent.These plans are similar to IEPs except that they comprehensively include the family and give leeway to assigning the contribution of the service provider, enabling professionals who are most capable of assisting each family to act. Unlike and IEP, the IFSP must be reviewed at least every 6 months, ensuring relevancy with a quickly growing and changing child. Related services including counseling and classes are now extended to family members. By sharing the process and improvement with the preschoolers guardians, we are able to see much greater progress with cooperative engagement.Along with the IFSP, PL 99-457 saw the requirement of an Individualized rebirth Plan, aiding young adults in making the change into adulthood. Fast forward to 1997, and PL 105-17 made some central amendments to the IDEA. Related services are expanded, developmen tally delayed category can be applied up until age nine, parameters and process around discipline is set. Functional Behavior Assessments or Behavior Intervention Plans must be enacted when providing discipline to special education children.Also, assessments for qualifying for special education are expanded, and Child Find reaches into hole-and-corner(a) schools to deliver services to more children. Along with these changes also came a change in funding ground on census data versus enrollment data. The percentages served translated to a fixed amount of funding, averting a gorge of over qualifying students. Lack of English Language proficiency is excluded as an area of qualification for services. This is important with the rising populations of English language learners. With the number of children from non-english speaking families on the rise, achievement gaps were widening.The No Child leave Behind Act in 2001 was drawn to support impoverished, special needs and English langua ge learners. This act is directly responsible for the Amendments to IDEA that came in 2004. One of the most important changes made was that of aligning the standards of highly qualified special education teachers to the standards of the No Child Left Behind Act. Inclusion of ECE teachers is yet to be enacted, however. The field and study of Early Childhood Special Education is a deeply diverse and ever evolving practice.Past experience has dictated that social climates, politics, events and laws all contribute to the programming of ECSE. The gains have been great, with dramatic increases in the numbers of children and families found and served, but as a nation, we certainly have some more maintain to travel. With current legislation and social issues ranging from secure schools to better serving working families, subsidized healthcare, immigration policies or revamping teacher evaluations, the future of Early Childhood Education is unwritten and open to influence.