Talk:Special education/Archive 3

Discussion about Inclusion
I removed the insult regarding lack of "return" for the investment of time and energy teaching student with special needs, particularly with mental retardation. Insults don't have a place in a discussion. I do think it is good there is some debate about what inclusion is, however. For the purpose of this discussion lets say inclusion in a typical public school is the philosphy that ALL students with special needs attend general education classes with their peers. Since this includes students with MR, LD, and EH, it places some difficult work in front of the teacher. Their lesson plans must be tailored for a wide-array of learning styles. With class sizes around 30, teaching must be "differentiated". So at the end of the day someone may ask, what did the student with an IQ of 70 learn in a History class talking about progressivism? Can he tell you about the Bull Moose Party on a test? Well, maybe not. But perhaps he made an observation about women's rights during a small group discussion. Maybe it was just one word, but it was a contribution. And he learned something. And his peers were exposed to this student, whom they usually have no other contact with during the day. It's just one scenerio. Another is that this student, as mentioned in Kahlenberg, R.D. (2008), ''Can seperate be equal? The overlooked flaw at the center of no child left behind: Updated for 2008'' is looked on by administrators as a burden, one that drags test scores down and lowers the chance a school makes AYP. So the decision is made that inclusion is a catchphrase only. In effect, students with severe disabilitites belong in seperate rooms all day, every day. And part of the school day they may in fact need seperate instruction. But the point is that, as a concept inclusion is interpreted in various ways by different school districts, though a federal law like IDEA made sure that there was a LRE for students there's a time when that can't be enforced, and justifications for each side depend on the student's needs, funding, and the educational team. Jim Steele 23:56, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Sock
Esthertaffet has been blocked as a banned user, named Jessica Liao. (The report is here.) Any edits she has made should be double-checked, and removed if at all suspicious. WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:09, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
 * Jim Steele seems to be a new incarnation of Jessica. I've just restored a section he/she deleted above and the wording used is identical. Dahliarose (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Removing US perspective
I'm not quite sure what to do about this article as it is virtually all written from a US perpsective with US-specific terms such as "mainstreaming" and "resource room". Also I think the word "disabled" possibly has different connotations in British English and American English. In the UK disabled would normally mean physically disabled. We talk about learning difficulties not learning disabilites for example. I've tried to replace the word disabilites with special needs througout the article so that no offence is caused. I've moved the Settings section to the US as this seems to relate directly to the US. Dahliarose (talk) 21:31, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Hello, I can understand your need to make sure people are not offended by the word disabled, but, before you go overhauling all of the special education articles please consider some facts. Again, I speak from the perspective of someone from the US who has knowledge of special education law and practice. That being said, much of what this article pertains to centers on IDEA: The Individual With Disabilities Education Act. Currently not just the federal government, all states, use the term disabilities. For example, we have physical disabilities (e.g. a student in a wheelchair is not able to walk) and emotional disabilites (e.g. a student who is not able to control her rage). Each interfers with the said student's access to the curriculum, and is hence classified as an educational disability. There are learning difficulties that are also disabilities, and vice versa. There are sections in this article linking to how other countries practice special education. Improve and expand those if you'd like. But as far as the term goes in the US a disability is not considered a negative moniker, at least not by professionals and people who have the student's best interest at heart. Moreover, if you are concerned about lowering the chances of offending people (which again I think is a great precept) then I'd focus on making sure the articles have people-first language. Jim Steele (talk) 00:01, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * The point is however that America is just one country in the entire world. Even if all states in America use terms in one particular way it doesn't mean that the rest of the world follows American usage and terminology. US legislation only affects the US not other countries, so this information really needs to go into an American section. Just because special education in the US is organised in a particular way in that country it doesn't mean that all other countries follow the same format. Some words like "mainstreaming" only appear in American English. I think resource rooms are also specific to the US. I'm not quite sure what you mean by people first language but I think it's important to use generic language which will not confuse readers or cause offence. Dahliarose (talk) 00:15, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * There are certainly some terminology differences, but I don't think that the fact of special settings is US-specific. Presumably the UK schools also place some students with disabilities in typical classrooms?  And others mostly or completely in separate classrooms?  And others in completely separate, specialized schools?  Don't children in hospitals get educated in the UK?  Then why would those four basic settings by a US-specific idea?
 * As far as I can tell, it's not possible to educate a student with disabilities unless he is placed in one of the following settings:
 * Mostly or entirely with non-disabled students
 * Mostly or entirely with disabled students, but at the same school (think: "same street address") as non-disabled students
 * With only disabled students at a school solely for disabled students
 * Outside of school entirely (think: hospital or prison)
 * As this covers all the logically possible cases, from "A" through "not A", there simply aren't any other options -- although, if you can think of a situation that is neither in nor out of any school and neither with nor without non-disabled students, please let me know. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:29, 14 December 2009 (UTC)
 * It's the terminology that's the problem. I don't recognise the terms exclusion, segregation, etc in this context. "Mainstreaming", "resource rooms", "push-in" etc all seem to be US-specific concepts. As the article stands "settings" is describing what happens in US schools in US terminology. For example, I don't think such a concept exists as "regular" inclusion in the UK with children only educated for half a day with their peers. In a mainstream school children with statements of special needs get additional help and the helper will sit in the mainstream classroom with the SEN child. In the UK exclusion has a specific meaning as can be seen from this legal definition: http://www.lawandparents.co.uk/exclusion-from-school.html. I don't the term exclusion would ever be used in the UK for a child who is unable to attend school because of illness or because of a particular special need. From what I understand the government has to provide education for all children so it would be a conscious decision for parents to opt not to send their child to school and perhaps educate him or her at home. I don't think any social workers, speech therapists and other such professionals are specifically attached to schools. These appointments would all be organised outside of the school system and probably out of school hours. I'm not sure what happens when a child is in hospital. I think the school will still provide work for the child to do, but I've never heard of a child in hospital being described as "excluded". I would have thought that the education of young offenders is probably beyond the scope of an article on special education. In the UK children are not sent to prison but go to separate schools which used to be known as Approved schools or borstals. Older children go to Young Offenders' Institutions: http://www.hmprisonservice.gov.uk/adviceandsupport/prison_life/juvenileoffenders. The problem too is that published sources tend to focus on special education in individual countries. I suspect that there are no published sources which describe the global picture which makes it very difficult for us to provide global definitions. I think it would be easier just to have a very short broad brush intro and then describe the situation in each different country. Dahliarose (talk) 12:17, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

I see some problems with your logic, the first being that words like "I think that.." and "I suspect that..." What we're trying to do is make sure entries are backed by research. And no, special settings in special education are not specific to the U.S. There are resource rooms in the UK and other countries, they are just called something different. You're playing a game of semantics here, splitting hairs, when in fact the artilce could use some more verfiable data in many areas. As I said before, if you can find verfiable sources for your entries, then go ahead and describe the situation in each country. If not, then do not butcher this article. Lastly, people-first language is "a student with dyslexia" not a dyslexic student.

Jim Steele (talk) 12:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The big problem with the article is the lack of sources. In the settings section all the sources are from the US publications. I've not actually tried to add any new information to the article at present. All I've done is move a US-specific section to the section on the US. I don't know who wrote this section. I don't know enough about special education in the US to add the appropriate sources. If on the other hand you can find reliable sources which demonstrate that the description of special education settings and terminology used in this section apply on a global basis then those references need to be included. I've only looked at UK sources. Resource room, mainstreaming, push in, etc are words which are simply not included in UK sources. Although some basic principles are the same, the organisation of special education in UK schools is somewhat different, and it will be different in other countries too. Dahliarose (talk) 13:22, 14 December 2009 (UTC)

Just where and how is it lacking sources? I see a long list of them, and they are verfiable. Moreover, there's this http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/13210/BB102.pdf and this http://www.edfacilities.org/rl/special_ed.cfm proving that in in fact mainstreaming, inclusion and resource rooms are not terms exclusive to the US. Again,I think the intent of your edits are great but it seems you are out of your depth with this subject. Just how is the organization of services different? So far all I've seen are circumstances that the US and UK have in common. Students identified with special needs require services. These services, by any other name, are intended to support the student. More detail is available, if you read the right sources and/or have experience in the field. As in many cases on this site, many people wrote this article, not one person, and over time an effort has been made to include different countries. Yet the research and the articles reflect the fact we have more in common then anything else. Jim Steele (talk) 17:28, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * The article is lacking in non-US sources. The systems might be broadly similar in England and the US but the difficulty comes when you try and amalgamate all the different terminologies to make one cohesive article. There are so many different nuances in the meanings of the words. You've found some very useful sources. Note in the Teachernet PDF that a distinction is made in the UK between disabilities and special educational needs. This is a distinction which you don't appear to have in the US which in itself creates difficulties as we've already seen with my confusion over the use of the word "disability" in these articles. According to page 11 of the PDF file special education in the UK is split into the following: mainstream school, resourced provision, designated unit, special school, co-location, dual registration. While broadly similar to the US system the terminology is very different. I wouldn't write a global article about special education using these very specific UK terms and similarly I don't think it is acceptable to use American terminology to explain special education on a worldwide basis. The word "mainstreaming" is not used in the Teachernet PDF file. It is not a word used in British English. There was only one mention of the word resource room in the PDF file and the meaning wasn't clear. I presume that a US resource room is possibly equivalent to a UK resourced provision or a designated unit. The problem is how do you combine all these different terminologies when the systems are very similar but not necessarily directly comparable? Also, we are only so far talking about the US and the UK, but there are many other countries in the world. I don't know the first thing about special education in China, India or Africa, but I'm sure it will be very different to special education in the Western world. The UNESCO website is possibly a useful resource for an international perspective: http://www.unesco.org/en/inclusive-education. There is also a very humbling statistic "over 90 per cent of children with disabilities in developing countries in developing countries do not attend school". Dahliarose (talk) 18:43, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * Dahlia, I agree that some(!) of the terms vary, but your changes have the effect of making the concepts appear to be US-specific, and that's simply inaccurate. By putting any mention of special school under "US only", you're effectively telling the reader that none of the UK's 1,300 special schools exist -- and all apparently because you don't want to type the UK-specific term, "resourced provision," into the sentence about inclusion, and so forth.  Why aren't you adding information about the UK system, as an alternative to this improbable claim that only SEN kids in the US get educated in any particular place or manner?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:34, 14 December 2009 (UTC)


 * It's a question of finding appropriate sources to establish what the main concepts are are and how they are interpreted in a global situation. Some of the concepts in the settings section are US-specific, and certainly the explanations of those concepts are US-specific. I'm struggling to translate regular and partial inclusion and mainstreaming to a UK situation for instance. I've tried doing searches to see what can be found in the way of more international sources. The global situation seems to be much more black and white. Disabled and special needs children either go to school (inclusion) or don't have any education whatsoever (exclusion). Unicef have some good resources such as this report: http://www.unicef.org/RI_Review_2007_Dec_web.pdf. See also page 9 of this Unicef report on education: http://www.unicef.org/girlseducation/files/QualityEducation.PDF. Unesco also have some good resources such as this page here: http://www.unesco.org/en/inclusive-education/10-questions-on-inclusive-quality-education. I would suggest the two basic concepts of inclusion and exclusion need to be explained in the general introduction, but it's difficult to know what to do with all the other in-between stages which will vary from country to country. This is the best source I can find which gives an overview of the international situation: http://www.eenet.org.uk/resources/docs/IE%20few%20resources%202008.pdf. Perhaps other people can find better sources. In this report the author identifies four main categories: (1) inclusive education; (2)Special education (encompassing special schools, special education needs and special needs); (3) Integrated education (also known as mainstreaming especially in the USA); (4) Small units (special classrooms or buildings attached to a mainstream school). Perhaps those categories could be used as a framework. In this report mainstreaming is defined (page 45) but seems to have a number of different meanings: "This term is often used in the same way as inclusion or integration …. mainstreaming can refer to a political process of bringing an issue from the margins into the mainstream". I'd be happy to have a go at the UK section at some point but I just don't have time at present. This article is only one of many that need completely redoing. The article on inclusion for instance suffers from the same problems. Dahliarose (talk) 21:13, 15 December 2009 (UTC)


 * My point is that the concepts are not US-specific. No students with special needs, anywhere in the world, are educated in a setting that cannot be described in the four categories listed in this article:
 * Primarily (or entirely) with non-SEN kids
 * Substantially with other SEN kids, but with some exposure to a non-SEN classroom
 * Completely isolated from non-SEN kids in a separate special school/unit/program
 * Outside of schools (ranging from private tutoring to no education at all)
 * You have not ever put forward a single source that contradicts this or says that these don't or can't exist, or that a fifth or sixth setting exists that has been omitted; you've only asserted that in your personal experience, non-professionals in the UK use different terms to describe these settings. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:18, 15 December 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. This thread is becoming a waste of time, and looking through your posts Dahlia it appears you are either bored and are making broad observations on a subject you've admitted you don't know much about and/or are taking some joy in finding random links to sites that are not useful for this article (or anything to do with special education, as far as I can see). Point in case, the "sources" I linked were not useful, they were a result of a quick internet search on the topic to prove that the terms you seem to have trouble accepting are in fact recognized universally. Even if they are not universally used whatamidoing's point stands: the concepts are. So please stop wasting our time. Stop sniping and stiring the pot. Jim Steele (talk) 00:28, 16 December 2009 (UTC)


 * All I'm saying is that Wikipedia articles have to be based on reliable sources. I'm not disputing the concepts you outline. All I'm asking for are some reliable sources which explain the concepts you want to use in an international setting not a US setting. Everyone is spending a lot of time arguing but so far no one has been able to come up with any sources to back up their preferred explanations of these concepts. As the article stands the vast majority of references are US publications which explain the concepts in a US setting. That is all I'm disputing, and I don't think that's unreasonable. As you've seen from the above I've found a selection of international sources from reliable organisations such as UNESCO and UNICEF, and another from an international review of special education. Are you both saying that you don't agree with the terminology used in these sources? I really don't see how links to sources from internationally respected organisations possibly be regarded as "random" and "not useful". Perhaps you can find some other sources from other internationally recognised organisations which explain the concepts in a better way. I cannot see how it is unreasonable to expect to have international sources for an article which is supposed to have international scope. Jim, where is the source for your statment that "Students with these kinds of special needs are likely to benefit from additional educational services, different approaches to teaching, access to a resource room and use of technology." Why use specific US terminology like resource room in a general introduction? If the term resource room is used globally there should be ample sources from different countries to define the terminology. Perhaps the thing to do is let other editors have a look and I'll just stick a tag on the article to warn readers that it does not represent a global perspective. Dahliarose (talk) 01:17, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
 * What we need are international editors who know about how their school system works and how special education is provided there. Can someone please provide sources for other countries besides US? I like to learn more about how special education works in other countries.  I especially want to know how special education is provided when tracking is used.  If I can take an education course in the UK, I would.  But I’m not from there, and I don’t have references.  All I know is that the UK does tracking.  That's what it says in the tracking article.  But still no one has provided information how special education is provided when tracking is used.   Look at the US section.  It describes how special education is provided.  And now we look at the UK. It barely says anything.  There needs more information on the UK.  But I can't provide sources because I'm not from the UK.  Perhaps a student in college at the UK who is studying about how school systems work can provide us sources.  It can’t be that hard.  I provided sources that are coming from my college textbooks. I’m not a professor or have any special degree.  I don’t know how Wikipedia expects us to find sources.  I’m not from Europe, Japan, etc.  Is Wikipedia only written by US editors? If that’s the case, we aren’t going to get anywhere with this article. Bryan Fedner (talk) 20:34, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

Criticisms
I would like to point out that almost all of the points in the criticisms section need citation. Would someone be so kind as to verify the sources? Teal 24.12.166.210 (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * Thank you for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to make those changes. Wikipedia is a wiki, so anyone can edit almost any article by simply following the  link at the top. The Wikipedia community encourages you to be bold in updating pages. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. If you're not sure how editing works, check out how to edit a page, or use the sandbox to try out your editing skills.  New contributors are always welcome. You don't even need to log in (although there are many reasons why you might want to).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 06:38, 11 January 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the uncited items removed here are actually verifi able (the policy is about the ability to source something, not about whether someone has already named a source). The Stainbacks certainly seem to believe that self-contained classrooms are morally suspect, if not actually a social evil, and many parents complain about perceived inequities.  I know someone that actually moved house to get their child into a school district with a "better" standard.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:59, 20 April 2010 (UTC)

SC-5
What is an SC-5 special education class for students? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.2.212.156 (talk) 16:43, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * In the US? My guess is that it's a self-contained classroom for fifth graders with special needs.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:12, 25 May 2010 (UTC)

NPOV dispute: Setting
I have some concerns in this specific section. One of the references does not make any sense at all. The Frank Bowe reference states that full inclusion is when related services are provided via "push in," meaning that professionals enter the classroom and deliver assistance there. Related services when carried out in the regular classroom are classroom disruption for the general education teacher. Frank Bowe reference is misinterpreting full inclusion. I suggest those references be removed. Full inclusion is extremely beneficial when carried out correctly. For example, teacher aides are assigned to help special-needs student progress. Having an aide in school is not considered a related service. They are helpful to decrease classroom disruption for a particularly disruptive student. I know a student who had Asperger Syndrome due to her maladjustment from her previous years at the alternative school. Apparently the school officials there did not see this as a cry for help. This alternative school was a “dumping ground” for all the at-risk students of the school district. Most of the kids were emotionally disturbed. Eventually she left and went back to the “traditional high school”. She was required to have an aide with her. Could having an aide be prevented? The first criticism in the article states, “At-risk students (those with educational needs that are not associated with a disability) are often placed in classes with special needs students. Critics assert that placing at-risk students in the same classes as special needs students may impede the educational progress of people with special needs.” it’s no wonder why the alternative school could not meet her needs. It is a shame to see the entire school system corrupt because of a simple misunderstanding.

My point is, full inclusion is a controversial practice and the reason for it is because it is not widely applied. Full inclusion is not only for students with mild disabilities. It’s for everyone. It’s about integrating all students, not only for students with mild disabilities. I think that the full inclusion should be expanded to make clear of what the controversy is. There are documentary films that have claimed to use full inclusion, which really was not because only the person with mental retardation was focused. It wouldn’t make sense to have teacher aides assigned for the small group of special-needs students when these students could be placed in resource rooms and self-contained classrooms. Of course the students who are in resource rooms or self-contained classrooms sometimes feel left out. Some educators feel full inclusion is important because in the end tolerance is achieved and children with disabilities have higher self-esteem when included. This quote describes the full inclusion philosophy well, “Children who learn together, learn to live together.”

The exclusion section is also vague. It doesn’t tell us which specific students are not mandated to receive special education services. A student who is homebound or in a hospital is still mandated to receive special education services. So I don’t see how these students are excluded. They are still part of special education. People who are in the criminal justice system are definitely excluded because this has nothing to do with special education anymore. I think that this should be mentioned in the article that talks about the criminal justice system. This section goes off on a tangent and it is confusing. Sharon Applebaum (talk) 21:13, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * Frank Bowe is a reliable source, and unless you can produce an equally reliable source that says push-in services aren't used, or can't be used, for full inclusion, then it needs to stand as it is. (Nobody is claiming that push-in services aren't disruptive.)
 * We aren't saying that full inclusion cannot be done for all students; we're saying that the reliable sources say that it usually isn't done for students with severe intellectual disabilities.
 * Rules about exclusion vary by country and time. It is true that a student who is homebound or in a hospital in the USA, under the current laws is required to be provided with an education.  A student who is homebound or in a hospital in, e.g., rural Zanzibar two centuries ago, was not.  This is not Special education in the United States.
 * As a point of fact, the large fraction of children and teenagers in Western criminal justice systems have disabilities, notably conduct disorder and mental illness. WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:08, 27 May 2010 (UTC)


 * I really don't have anything else to add from what WAID posted since I stopped reading after the "Frank Bowe..is misinterpresting full inclusion." When someone starts their posts on a talk page by insulting a well-respected person in the field it suggests they've got an axe to grind from personal experiences (thus in itself illustrating a violation of NPOV)and reflects ignorance only an amateur would flout.
 * By the way, it smells on this talk page. Like an old sock.
 * Jim Steele (talk) 11:35, 28 May 2010 (UTC)


 * This account, which bears a striking similarity to the name of an assistant principal at Jessica's old school, has been blocked as an impermissible account created by a person who has been indefinitely banned from Wikipedia. WhatamIdoing (talk) 01:38, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

sudbury
The criticism section mentions the Sudbury model. I don't know much about it besides the fact it seems like a Montessori-based model. That being said the article says:"Proponents of unschooling have also claimed that children raised in this method do not suffer from learning disabilities" without a citation. That's a lofty statement to make, and I think it should be cited or axed because it assumes special education is a situational aspect of education and the incidence varies from one environment to another. While the diagnostic criteria may vary, there are students with learning disabilities in all types of schools, regardless of the philosophy. Jim Steele (talk) 15:57, 29 May 2010 (UTC)

Criticism section
This section is about a USA cultural issues supported regarding how disabilities are viewed in the USA, and how they are supported by the USA health support systems which is an area of current political discussion over the last decade or so. Many other English speaking countries have different structures and cultural approaches to their social welfare systems and how they are funded. So the Criticism section should be a subsection of the USA or North America section unless more global references can be found. dolfrog (talk) 10:35, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * No, your facts are wrong. The UK's Warnock report calls these types of criticisms "well-worn" in England.  If these criticism are "well-worn" in England, then why would we say or imply that they are purely USA-specific issues?
 * I agree that the criticisms give more examples from the US, but that does not mean that the same underlying issues don't exist everywhere. For example, I suspect that every single school that puts children with a severe specific learning disability (like yours) into ordinary classrooms has some parent who thinks that his own "typical" child gets less attention from the teacher as a result (even if they won't say it to your face).  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * My main concern is to have a Jargon free article, and both USA and UK governments are very good at creating their own education related jargon (mainly to avoid paying for the educational services all children need). So we need to avoid this type of vocabulary so that others not familiar with our own terminology are able to understand the article, and understand it in relation to their country. Especially if the article has to be translated. we in the UK have moved on since Wornock and most children who gain a Statement of Special needs have a classroom assistant allocated to help with some of their learning needs. (My youngest son who starts Secondary school next academic year should be allocated or provided with a "Note Taker" so that the can concentrate on what the teacher is saying. This has the benefit for those "typical" class members when they are ill, they will have access his notes for the time they were absent.)


 * No system is perfect, and each country will adopt the system which best suites their culture at any one moment in time, so all we can do is to describe the various options or types of special education provision and may be have a controversy section to discuss the merits and/or criticisms of each type or combinations of types. dolfrog (talk) 17:14, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Have you read the section recently? Perhaps it would be helpful to take it one at a time:
 * What it says: Disabled students might be put in a class with badly behaved non-disabled students.  Disabled students might learn more if they didn't have to put up with badly behaved non-disabled students.
 * Do you think that this only happens in the USA? Does your country guarantee disabled students a disruption-free classroom, with zero students who are very poor, abused by their parents, drug-addicted, English learners, or otherwise at-risk for academic failure?
 * Do you think that it's only in the USA that disabled students might learn more if the teacher isn't constantly stopping the class to deal with a badly behaved student?
 * I don't believe that these are USA-specific concerns. Do you?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:40, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

global view on special education
In countries that use tracking, how special education is provided is very different than to countries that do not use tracking. In countries that use tracking, students with disabilities are tracked into their own group which makes inclusion very meaningless. It is not segregation or exclusion but just a different type of school system they use. This article is better off with having each country describe how they do special education. Or maybe describing how special education is done when tracking is used and how special education is done when tracking is not used. I have provided verified sources for full inclusion. Bryan Fedner (talk) 16:05, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

OK then we need to define and describe the types of Special education provision:- mainstreaming, full inclusion, partial inclusion, special schools, homeschooling, etc. And then explain the cultural biases countries use to select their preferred options. If there is existing Wikipedia article about Special Education in a particular country, then only a brief summary is required in this article to avoid a duplication of in-depth detailed content. dolfrog (talk) 22:11, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * We've been over this before. The definition of mainstreaming, full and partial inclusion as well as homseschooling don't differ much from how they are used in the U.S.A. and in Europe. See whatamidoing's comments on this topic previously. There's been a sock who's been stinking up this page recently, and I'm suspecting this is the case with the original post here. Dolgfrog, I agree with you that duplication of in-depth content needs to be avoided, as speaking as someone who's added a decent quantity of sources for this article, I take issue with Bryan Fedner's (or Jessica in some other incarnation) assertion tracking somehow undermines the integrity of how special education is presented here. You're wrong, by the way, there is no "seperate type of school system" used in tracking. In fact, tracking is based on academic ability, and special education, by definition hasn't so much to do with academic ability then a bona fide disability that impedes access to a curriculum. So your point, if there was one, is neither here nor there. If I'm wrong, find some sources that back your argument up. Otherwise, stop stinking up this page and instead suggest genuine improvements to the article instead of random, ambiguous statements based on a cursury knowledge of the subject.

Jim Steele (talk) 23:22, 15 June 2010 (UTC)


 * This subject has been discussed before as you will see above. Unfortunately the only interested editors on the article are US-based, hence the American bias. I'm afraid I don't have time to do much with this at present. It gets very difficult and confusing when different countries use different terminology and it is indeed very important that the article should be written from a global perspective rather than trying to use US-specific terminology like mainstreaming, resource room, lock-up, etc, which aren't in usage in other countries. Tracking is another term which is possibly only used in the US. In the UK the equivalent is streaming, though the trend is now for setting by ability in individual subjects. No doubt other countries will have their own terminology. I suspect a lot of the material in the US section really needs to go into the US article on special education instead. I did provide some references above to material on special education from global organisations such as UNESCO. If you have time it would be helpful to incorporate material from these sources into the article. In many countries children with special needs are lucky to get an education at all, let alone have the huge variety of settings that seem to be available in the US. Dahliarose (talk) 22:06, 16 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Dahliarose you are not the only one from the UK dolfrog (talk) 00:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think we really need to define and describe the types of Special education provision. The "Provision of individualized services" gives readers how special education is done in a global perspective. We can always expand on it if more information is needed.  In countries that do tracking, that's how it's done.


 * Mainstreaming, inclusion and full inclusion is only done in the US. The sources that I provided used "least-restrictive environment" and this term is used in the US law.  Then the bottom talks about full inclusion as being an alternative to mainstreaming.  Logically, if full inclusion is being compared to mainstreaming, then we also know that mainstreaming is also used in the US. Clearly, it is wrong to even put mainstreaming, inclusion and full inclusion in a global perspective.  Dahliarose is correct.  These terms are not used anywhere else.  Perhaps the concepts of mainstreaming, inclusion or full inclusion may be done in other countries.  But to use these terms to say that other countries use these terms is not giving readers a true understanding of how other school systems work. Bryan Fedner (talk) 15:02, 17 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Once again, from the top:
 * Wikipedia is not a dictionary or a terminology guide.
 * The purpose of this article is to tell readers "what happens to school-age children with disabilities", not "what jargon is used by professionals in each country to describe what happens to these children".
 * Yes: Students with significant disabilities in rural Mexico are usually not permitted to attend school at all.
 * No: The name that the Mexican school officials apply to this practice is exclusión.
 * Yes: Some students with disabilities attend at least some classes with non-disabled students.
 * No: The 1978 Warnock report (UK) calls this integration, Canada calls exactly the same thing normalisation, and the US calls exactly the same thing mainstreaming or inclusion, depending on the level of integration.
 * Yes: Some students with disabilities attend entirely schools entirely dedicated to educating students with disabilities.
 * No: The UK's Warnock report calls this practice segregation (e.g., Chapter 2, section 79; Chapter 7, section 2).
 * Yes: Students with disabilities may go to another part of their school to use special materials and equipment or to receive help from specially trained teachers.
 * No: The UK calls this a "resource centre" (Warnock report, Chapter 7, section 32), and the US calls this a "resource room".
 * Do we all see the difference? The point is "what happens", not "which term your local school uses".
 * Additionally, the Warnock report divides special education settings into precisely the same four categories that this page has included for a long time:
 * entirely with non-disabled students,
 * primarily with non-disabled students,
 * primarily with other disabled students, and
 * entirely with other disabled students.
 * (See Chapter 7, section 12.) It naturally omits "the LEA refuses to educate this child", since that has been effectively illegal in England since 1970 (and Scotland since 1974).  Note, once again, that the Warnock report is a non-American source describing non-American practices.  We have consistently used a variety of names from a variety of English-speaking countries in describing these practices.  The only verifiable problem, as far as I can tell, is that a couple of editors don't actually know the terminology used in their own countries, and so mistakenly assume that any label that is unfamiliar to them is an American term.
 * Again, the goal is to describe "what happens", not "what it's called in my country". Accordingly, I'll be moving the worldwide practices back out of the USA-only section, and I request that people in the future think less about the labels, and more about what actually happens to these students.  If you can figure out ways to make this page use even less country-specific jargon, I'll be happy, but please don't leave readers with the impression that only American students are ever placed in settings primarily with other disabled students solely because that particular paragraph includes the word "mainstreaming" and your local school uses a different word to describe exactly the same practice.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 * what you are failing to understand is the need for a global method of describing "what happens to school-age children with disabilities" this does not mean that the article uses exclusively USA terminology which is peculiar to the USA on the assumption that everyone outside of the USA understands the USA dialects of the English language. What is required are global definitions of the types of classroom options, and due to the complexity of the different education systems then as an encyclopedia we need to explain who readers from different countries may related to the content of this specialised topic in their locality using their terminology. There are some ill informed Wikipedia editors from the USA who think that whole world revolves around the USA, and the USA way is the only way to do things. Hopefully this is not the case with the editors here. dolfrog (talk) 10:48, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it is you, dolfrog, who is failing to understand. See whatamidoing's commnent that "Wikipedia is not a dictionary or terminlogy guide." Read that. Understand it, because it is an important point, one that should make you take pause in your assertions that "global definitions of the types of classroom options" are needed. Did you read her post? Slowly, and carefullly? Because it's important to do so, when people take the time to respond using specific examples. If, in fact, there are so many ill-informed editors running around with "US-centric" views then perhaps NPOV violations are happening as we speak. It's not unlikely. But I see a case here where you, a parent of student who has a disability, who can easily violate NPOV when posting on special education. Moreover, again I wills ay if you've checked the sources I've added, the bulk are not journals that only publish American authors. No, scholars from all over the world publish in them. What is important to them is not semantics but policy.
 * Might be best to learn from their methods.Jim Steele (talk) 14:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * (See Chapter 7, section 12.) It naturally omits "the LEA refuses to educate this child", since that has been effectively illegal in England since 1970 (and Scotland since 1974).  Note, once again, that the Warnock report is a non-American source describing non-American practices.  We have consistently used a variety of names from a variety of English-speaking countries in describing these practices.  The only verifiable problem, as far as I can tell, is that a couple of editors don't actually know the terminology used in their own countries, and so mistakenly assume that any label that is unfamiliar to them is an American term.
 * Again, the goal is to describe "what happens", not "what it's called in my country". Accordingly, I'll be moving the worldwide practices back out of the USA-only section, and I request that people in the future think less about the labels, and more about what actually happens to these students.  If you can figure out ways to make this page use even less country-specific jargon, I'll be happy, but please don't leave readers with the impression that only American students are ever placed in settings primarily with other disabled students solely because that particular paragraph includes the word "mainstreaming" and your local school uses a different word to describe exactly the same practice.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 23:35, 17 June 2010 (UTC)
 * what you are failing to understand is the need for a global method of describing "what happens to school-age children with disabilities" this does not mean that the article uses exclusively USA terminology which is peculiar to the USA on the assumption that everyone outside of the USA understands the USA dialects of the English language. What is required are global definitions of the types of classroom options, and due to the complexity of the different education systems then as an encyclopedia we need to explain who readers from different countries may related to the content of this specialised topic in their locality using their terminology. There are some ill informed Wikipedia editors from the USA who think that whole world revolves around the USA, and the USA way is the only way to do things. Hopefully this is not the case with the editors here. dolfrog (talk) 10:48, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think it is you, dolfrog, who is failing to understand. See whatamidoing's commnent that "Wikipedia is not a dictionary or terminlogy guide." Read that. Understand it, because it is an important point, one that should make you take pause in your assertions that "global definitions of the types of classroom options" are needed. Did you read her post? Slowly, and carefullly? Because it's important to do so, when people take the time to respond using specific examples. If, in fact, there are so many ill-informed editors running around with "US-centric" views then perhaps NPOV violations are happening as we speak. It's not unlikely. But I see a case here where you, a parent of student who has a disability, who can easily violate NPOV when posting on special education. Moreover, again I wills ay if you've checked the sources I've added, the bulk are not journals that only publish American authors. No, scholars from all over the world publish in them. What is important to them is not semantics but policy.
 * Might be best to learn from their methods.Jim Steele (talk) 14:34, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Dolfrog, this page uses UK-specific terms. "Segregation", for example, is straight out of one of the most important documents about special education in the United Kingdom.  Why do you say the article uses "exclusively USA terminology which is peculiar to the USA" when this article clearly uses non-USA terminology in some places?  WhatamIdoing (talk) 15:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * I agree that the goal is to describe what happens but it needs to be done in a way in which people can understand, regardless of which country they live in and regardless of how much they know about the subject of special education on a worldwide basis let alone in their own country. At the moment the section on settings is written entirely from a US perspective and all the references are from US publications. It's not just the use of the word "mainstreaming" but the references to US specific concepts such as least restrictive environment and resource room which make it very difficult for anyone outside the US to understand it and apply it to the situation in their own country. The US also seems to have this complicated distinction between "mainstreaming" and "inclusion" which doesn't exist elsewhere. You have to use neutral easy-to-understand language. Why not just say separate classroom for instance instead of using US-specific jargon like resource room which introduces an unnecessary layer of confusion. The way that User:WhatamIdoing has described the settings on this discussion page makes the situation much easier to understand? Why not use that as the basis for a section on settings? I think however it is necessary to explain a little bit about the terminologies used in different countries, as this is the only way that the article will make any sense to an international readership. What you cannot do is write the entire article using US-specific terminology and expect everyone else in the world to understand. Incidentally, the Warnock report also looks like a very useful reference. I suggest the settings section stays in the American and a more general section with neutral terminology would then need to be written for the main article.Dahliarose (talk) 15:45, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * We use Mainstreaming (education), Inclusion (education), and Resource room so that we can build the web. If a UK person had written the articles about these concepts, then we'd use the UK-specific terms instead (e.g., "integration" and "resource centre").  If a Canadian had written the articles about these concepts, then we'd use the Canadian-specific terms instead (e.g., "normalisation").  However, it happens that these were written by Americans, so we're going with what we've got per WP:ENGVAR and WP:ACCESS's dislike of unnecessary piped links.  (As it happens, these terms are actually used by non-Americans, too.)
 * Please explain to me how "the section on settings is written entirely from a US perspective" while it precisely follows the scheme set out in the UK's Warnock report.
 * While you're at it, you might consider whether this source from someone at the University of Southampton (in a London-based publication) and the Warnock report itself (Crown copyright/published by the UK itself) are really "US publications". Both of these were cited in the #Settings section that Dolfrog reverted.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:37, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If I'd written a section on settings I would have used neutral terms precisely in the manner I've described and would have recognised that UK terms would not necessarily be understood elsewhere.The settings section is written using US terminology which is why it's so hard to relate to settings in any other country. The concept needs to be described and then you say what it is known as in  different countries. I haven't looked at all the references in detail, but if we have some non-US references then we should indeed be trying to use them. Dahliarose (talk) 17:41, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * A fact that may be helpful to the UK-based editors: In the US, the term "segregation" is used almost exclusively to mean racial segregation.  It is basically never used to describe placing a student with disabilities into a classroom without non-disabled peers.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)
 * There will be no section using "neutral terms" unless either one of you can substantiate what you mean by that term. Again, for the nth time, the terms like mainstreaming and inclusion are not U.S. specific. I feel like whatamidoing is wasting more time then I am here. Because neither are you are listening. Even if they are U.S. specific, and perhaps the article may in fact be (even though special education is described in other countries via this article, a fact you don't seem to acknowledge), then provide some sources that could be used in a "neutral" article. So far, none of you have. So you're stirring the pot, and that's not helping the article much now, is it? That's the intent of this page, to make suggestions. So you've criticized it. Now instead of making general statements and sniping, make specific suggestions using research. Kind of like, for example, this: Shockingly enough, the article was written by a professor from the U.K. Even more amazing--hold on to your seats folks--he studies special education and related topics across Europe. Seems to me he'd be careful to avoid using phrases or terms like "mainstreaming" and "inclusion" that you say are only applicable to the U.S. and the BJEP would not publish an article that was so biased. As noted before, it would be best for you to compare the intent of his article, it's importance, against the nitpicking here.Jim Steele (talk) 18:25, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Jim, I did provide some global sources from Unicef and Unesco which you seem to have dismissed out of hand, presumably because they do not conform to your US-centric views. I did not say that the word inclusion was not used in the UK. Mainstreaming is mostly US usage. American English has habit of converting nouns into verbs which is frowned upon in British English. Academic journals are international publications. Many of their readers will be in America, so they have an obligation to translate their terminology and ensure that it is understood by their American readers. As a Wikipedia editor you have to appreciate that there are readers in countries other than America, and the terminology has to be adjusted accordingly. I have no problem with using the dual terminology "inclusion/mainstreaming" in the article. I do have a problem with the exclusive usage of mainstreaming as though it is a term that everyone understands. Dahliarose (talk) 23:12, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Let's try this again. The #Settings section uses four terms:
 * 1) Inclusion:  A term used in multiple countries, such as the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand (ISBN 9780750709347, chapter 7), and Canada -- note that this Canadian source specifically uses the term "full inclusion", as does this Indian one -- and many less wealthy countries, including Brazil, Uganda, Zimbabwe, and more (ISBN 9781402087318).
 * 2) Mainstreaming:  A term largely used in the USA, but a concept that is present everywhere.
 * 3) Segregation:  A term largely used in the United Kingdom and some former colonies such as India -- but basically never used in the USA.
 * 4) Exclusion:  A term that is also used in multiple countries (see half of the sources named above, especially for developing countries).

Now: Given these verifiable facts, why do you keep telling me that "The settings section is written using US terminology"? Do you think that the dozen sources linked here are all American sources? WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:26, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * You seem to have trouble understanding this from an international perspective. This whole section is very confusing as it stands, and especially so for anyone who is not American. Let’s take this one point at a time.

- Inclusion, mainstreaming, full inclusion. These terms are not explained and I’m struggling to understand the relevant linked Wikipedia articles. From what I can understand it is only the US which seems to have these different levels of inclusion. If I’ve understood correctly in the US you have full inclusion and partial inclusion (also known as mainstreaming). Other countries don't have these distinctions. Earlier on this talk page I provided a host of international references from Unicef and Unesco which I thought could be used as a framework. Surely it is better to use the terminology adopted by respected international organisations in a general section providing a global overview? As mainstreaming is a term mainly used in the US it should be avoided or inserted in parentheses. You should not assume that readers from other countries are familiar with US terminology.

- “Least restrictive environment” is US jargon and not understood by a non-US reader.

- The section talks about pupils leaving the “regular classroom” (US terminology) and attending special lessons in a resource room. Resource room is US-specific language. Why not just say in a separate or dedicated classroom? You could add that this is known as a resource room in the US. Country-specific terminology should not be used for an international readership.

The section states: "Three out of five students with academic learning challenges spend the overwhelming majority of their time in the regular classroom.” This is a US reference and applies to the US. It does not describe the global picture.

The section states: “Because inclusion can require substantial modification of the general curriculum, most schools use it only for selected students with mild to moderate special needs, for which is accepted as a best practice”. Again both references are from US publications. This describes the situation in most schools in the US. It does not describe the situation in for instance most Third World countries where children with special needs have no choice but to attend the nearest school if they’re lucky. You cannot extrapolate the US situation and assume it applies to every single country in the world. The same applies to much of the other content in this section.

The section uses throughout the term “disabilities” which again is used in different ways in different countries. I’ve already made the point above that in the UK disabilities tends to be used more for people with physical disabilities. As I’ve shown above, UK sources tend to distinguish between disabilities and difficulties. Perhaps Dolfrog can advise, but I cannot image someone with dyslexia or dyspraxia in the UK being described as having a disability. Also in the UK gifted and talented education is included in special needs education. You can say that someone who is gifted and talented has a special need but you wouldn’t say that they have a disability. The different nuances in these words create a lot of difficulties for an international readership.

- Homebound. This term is not explained and I’ve not idea what it is supposed to mean.

The very fact that we have US and UK editors who cannot agree on common terminology suggests to me that it is inappropriate to include anything on settings in the article’s introductory section, and that settings are best addressed on a country-by-country basis. The majority of references are in any case country-specific. Dahliarose (talk) 23:02, 18 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If "full inclusion" is purely a USA-specific thing, then why do university professions in Canada and India use that term? Are Canada and India now part of the USA?  I get more than 500 hits on the precise phrase "full inclusion" at .gov.uk:  If this is a USA-specific term, then why does it appear more than 500 times on the UK's government website?  Is it at least possible that these 500+ instances of UK officials voluntarily using this term in official documents show us that this is not actually a USA-specific bit of jargon, even if you, personally, haven't encountered it?
 * "Least restrictive environment" does not appear anywhere in the #Settings section.
 * "Regular classroom" is not US-specific jargon. The US-specific jargon for the regular/ordinary/typical/non-special classroom that regular/ordinary/typical/non-special-needs students attend in a regular/ordinary/typical/non-special school is "general education classroom".  (Other countries, such as the UK, also use this term at least occasionally.)  This section links to resource room because Wikipedia is a hypertext environment, and we are supposed to build the web.  There is no article at separate classroom or dedicated classroom, and a resource room (or "resource centre", to use the UK-specific jargon) is not merely physically separate, but has specific resources and specially trained staff.  It is different from a special classroom or a special unit (UK-specific jargon; it's called a "self-contained classroom" in the US) or a special programme (UK-specific jargon with no US-specific equivalent [the American programs are usually described by the specific need they're designed to address, e.g., "autism program"]).
 * The point behind the "three out of five" example is to show people that most children with dyslexia (for example), attend exactly the same classroom in exactly the same school as their non-dyslexic next-door neighbors. Most readers look at special education and think "Oh, that's only about children with Down syndrome or deafness, and they're all isolated in other rooms or buildings" -- which is simply untrue.  If you've got good sources for worldwide, or even multi-country, numbers, then I'd be perfectly happy to substitute them.  When I looked for options, the US numbers appeared reliable and were the biggest country I could find.  I do not agree that one well-sourced example from a large, English-speaking country turns the entire section into a USA-specific section.
 * The words "disability", "disabilities", and "disabled" do not appear anywhere in the section, and haven't for months now. Perhaps you haven't actually read the specific section that we're discussing since sometime last year?  It would be really helpful to me if you would read it and comment on the actual proposal, instead of your memory of last year's versions.  (I think you can learn something about Dolfrog's views on whether dyslexia is considered a disability in the UK here.)
 * Homebound is also plain old English word. See homebound if this word is unfamiliar to you.  The word dates from the late 16th century, i.e., before the USA existed.  I therefore dispute your implication that this is a bit of American jargon.  If you think our readers have a limited vocabulary, then I'm willing to add an inline link to Wiktionary.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:19, 19 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Well done, whatamidoing. Again and again you provide resources here we can all use. And, unfortunately, they will probably be in vain. Instead of making general observations about issues you haven't read you take it point by point. I wish I could say the same thing about others who end up meddling with this article. It is good, though, at least a couple people are keeping an eye on things here, huh? This whole discussion--to use the term generously--has proven the point we don't have enough educated, experienced editors working on the education-related pages. It seems like all we've got, in terms of interested editors, are people with superficial knowledge at best, others with axes to grind, and a sock that emerges from the hamper regularly. I wish people would read the article all the ay through. Slowly and carefully. Alas, I'm going to assume most who stuble on it do. They can't all be skimming.


 * No, that wouldn't do. Because here from my lazy-Z boy chair, stuffing myself with twinkies, while watching my favorite reality show, adjusting my cowboy hat while polishing my rifle, nestled carefully on my lap (nest to my Budweiser), I'm just too US-centric to even post here. But I will post the ridiculous comment from above before I go back to listening to Elvis on my oversized, loud and very un-green stereo:Academic journals are international publications. Many of their readers will be in America, so they have an obligation to translate their terminology and ensure that it is understood by their American readers. Note: not all academic journals are international. Another note, not that it matters. Jargon is typically used to describe unintelligible language. While you may take issue with the terms used, apparently for the sake of arguing, they aren't jargon. If they were, you wouldn't be able to read them. Aloha!Jim Steele (talk) 00:46, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Your tone is not helping in these discussions. I don't think you've read or taken in anything I've written. I have provided a list of global sources from Unicef, Unesco and other publications which provide alternative terminology which you have simply chosen to ignore. My comments were made in good faith based on the settings section as it was at the time. The article has since been extensively changed. It is impossible to have a sensible discussion if the article keeps changing every five minutes and we don't know which versions are being discussed. We do not articles for every basic word in the English language like separate classroom that anyone anywhere in the world can understand. We do have a duty to explain words and phrases which are only used in certain countries. The reason I am taking issue with so much of this article is because I can't understand so much of it. Why should I need special expertise in special education in America to be able to understand an article about special education worldwide? It is quite nonsensical to suggest that academics work in isolation and write articles in academic publications only for readers in their own country. Journals might be published in Britain or in America and contains those words in their titles but people from both countries will read those articles. This article is intended not for an academic readership but for a general readership. International clarity is therefore essential. As this debate is going nowhere and you seem to be unable to respond in a civil and courteous manner I will refrain from answering any more of your comments. Dahliarose (talk) 13:28, 19 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Dahliarose, the sentence in italics was a copy of what you said. Perhaps I should have made that more clear. Then above you contradict what you said previously. If my tone is caustic it is because, if you cannot understand the article, then you should not be editing it. Period.

Jim Steele (talk) 01:30, 20 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If I cannot understand the article then it means that it needs re-rewriting in clear English so that it can be understood by an international readership. This is not an American encylopaedia but a worldwide encyclopaedia. Dahliarose (talk) 09:58, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I see, it is you and you alone who decides if articles need re-writing. No, actually. Re-writing is based on consensus. By the way, I'd suggest re-reading the article. And whatamidoing's comments. And the references. And...oy, I'm dropping pennies in a well!Jim Steele (talk) 16:17, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Prevelance of "full inclusion"
If "full inclusion" means that children with SEN are in a mainstream classroom for the majority of their time, then that is the norm in the UK, so I've marked the sentence "dubious". I read the Hastings & Oakford article and it can't be used to support such an assertion. Itsmejudith (talk) 22:34, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * As described in the first sentence of that paragraph, these sources are defining full inclusion as something much closer to "the student with SEN never, ever leaves the mainstream classroom" than to "the students spend a bare majority of their time in a mainstream classroom". Proponents of "full inclusion" want students with SEN to spend 100% of the school day in a mainstream classroom.  You can do "inclusion" with far less than 100% of time spent in a mainstream classroom, but you can't do "full inclusion" if the students receive any services outside the mainstream classroom.
 * So the question becomes: Do children with SEN in the UK ever leave the mainstream classroom to receive SEN-related services (e.g., for speech therapy, to meet privately with a social worker, to use equipment not available in the mainstream classroom, for one-on-one or small-group instruction in a quieter room)?  If so, then these kids are not being "fully included" according to these reliable sources.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:17, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

It occurs to me that another difficulty with this article is that the definition of special needs will almost certainly vary from country to country. This source provides a description of what it means in England and also provides legal definitions of words such as disability (pages 12 and 13). http://www.teachernet.gov.uk/_doc/3724/SENCodeofPractice.pdf. It says: "Children have special educational needs if they have a learning difficulty which calls for special educational provision to be made for them. Children have a learning difficulty if they: (a) have a significantly greater difficulty in learning than the majority of children of the same age; or (b) have a disability which prevents or hinders them from making use of educational facilities of a kind generally provided for children of the same age in schools within the area of the local education authority". The Department of Education provides statistics on the number of children with special education needs. http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/rsgateway/DB/SFR/s000794/SFR15_2008_Final.pdf The majority of schools in England will educate a certain proportion of children with SEN. In some schools, especially inner-city schools in London, Birmingham and elsewhere, the proportion could be in excess of 50%. Very few schools have specialist facilities. The specialist facilities tend to be located in a small number of selected schools which have special units for SEN children with the most severe needs (ie those with wheelchairs). A child with a "statement" (a bureaucratic process required to qualify for extra support) in a mainstream school will have a learning support assistant who sits with him or her in the classroom. Children with SENs but without statements (the majority) will always be educated in mainstream schools. Some subjects such as maths or English might be taught in some schools in sets by ability. Conceivably all SEN children could then be together for these subjects if they are all in the bottom set, but you might have an autistic child in the top set for maths and the bottom set for English. Providing information about other services such as social workers and speech therapists is the job of the SEN co-ordinator. These services are not provided on the school premises. Whether or not it is done in school time or not will presumably vary depending on the services provided by the local education authority. Presumably full inclusion corresponds to SEN children being educated in mainstream schools and "inclusion" is SEN children who go to schools with specialist units, though official documents don't tend to make this distinction, but the system in England at least does not seem to support the statement that "full inclusion is a controversial practice, and it is not widely applied". In a global context, what you are calling full inclusion is often practised by default simply because there is no other option. Dahliarose (talk) 11:28, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Hi WhatamIdoing. These are interesting questions. Something that may surprise you is that about 15% of children in England are classified as SEN. About 2% of children attend special schools and I think about another 1 or 2% are in special units attached to mainstream schools. Government stats on that are available for download and I will look out the links. I had forgotten about the setting system Dahliarose describes, which is relevant. You ask about whether children with SEN, educated in mainstream schools, receive any services outside the mainstream classroom. It depends, and I very much doubt if there are any figures to back up the impressions of those who have had some experience of the system. Typically, a classroom assistant sits in the class and gives attention to the SEN students. A signer could be present to work with a deaf student, or a scribe to help a student with cerebral palsy write. That's all within the classroom though. Many schools run drop-in workshops, in English, Maths, study skills, other things in break times or after school. Those might be run by the SENCO and targeted towards SEN children but it would be completely up to the school how widely to open them up. Children with behavioural issues might be withdrawn from class for sessions with a counsellor - but children without SEN might similarly be withdrawn for other purposes. Withdrawal from lessons is in general seen as a less-than-ideal option. Itsmejudith (talk) 13:14, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Those numbers are about the same as what US sources report.
 * The sources we've found say that full inclusion is controversial and isn't widely applied (whereas not-quite-full inclusion [usually in the regular classroom, but occasionally not] is quite widely used, especially for specific learning disabilities and mild-to-moderate special needs). Do you have sources that say that, for example, the majority of those 15% of UK students with SEN are never withdrawn from the mainstream classroom for SEN-related services?
 * Additionally (exemplified by the New York anon's recent changes), most sources talk about full inclusion with respect to the individual student, but a few talk about full inclusion with respect to entire schools (or even LEAs). Under this model, nobody is fully included so long as any student is attending a special school or separate classroom for students with SENs (regardless of what's best for the specific student with SENs).  This maximalist/advocacy definition is less common, so I don't think that we should include it here (although it should be discussed at Inclusion (education)).
 * Perhaps the simplest way to clarify this is to say that "full inclusion of all students with SENs, regardless of their individual needs, is controversial and not widely applied". WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

My daughter attends a nursery school and they do full inclusion there. There is no speech teacher in the classroom. This would be disruptive and the kids wouldn’t be able to learn. There are teacher aides who assist the children with disabilities. Having all these professionals in the classroom i.e. speech, occupational therapists would only cause chaos to the class. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.38.10.1 (talk) 16:11, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

NPOV
Just a quick note to say that I have asked for comments on the NPOV board as it seems impossible to have a sensible discussion on this talk page. Let's hope that a neutral editor will be able to provide some impartial advice and suggest ways in which we can proceed with this article so that it can be understood by a global audience. It should not be necessary to have an intricate knowledge of all the nuances of the American special education system, along with the specialised American vocabulary, to be able to understand this article. You can find the NPOV oticeboard here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/Noticeboard#American_bias_in_Special_education_article Until the concerns about the lack of global perspective can be addressed it would be appreciated if the globalise tag could be kept on the page. It seems pointless engaging in an edit war. It is clear from the edit history that two other editors apart from me have expressed concerns about the use of US terminology. Dahliarose (talk) 17:05, 20 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Have you not noticed the "differences by location?" section. We are all laughing here because it's become more of a comedy, really, how many times you are repeating the same things over and over while others point you (in vain) to the articles on special education in other countries. Also, you haven't added one source, besides the UNESCO, which is concerned more with human rights then education, since this began. All too revealing.

Jim Steele (talk) 02:20, 21 June 2010 (UTC)


 * There are around 200 countries in the world. Only a tiny handful of countries are included in the "differences by location" section. Huge countries like India and China are not represented at all, and whole continents such as Africa are missing entirely. How can this possibly represent a worldwide view? The reason I haven't added any sources is because I was trying to establish first of all which sources we should be using. Dahliarose (talk) 09:18, 21 June 2010 (UTC)
 * If you re still struggling to decide which sources are appropriate for an article, then you've proven my hunch about you all along.Jim Steele (talk) 00:36, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Dahlia, just use the best sources you have. Wikipedia doesn't require perfection on the first attempt.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 05:08, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Sources can only be added when we have agreed upon the structure of the article. In view of the difficulties in trying to establish a common language between US and UK editors, the only way I can see this article working is if we have a short generalised introductory section, and country-specific sections describing the settings in each individual country in their own terminology. It's impossible to add references when you cannot relate the existing content to your own country, and also when you try to do basic edits such as removing references to American expressions like Resource room from the general section, only to find that they get reverted. Dahliarose (talk) 23:02, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Resource room? "American expression??" Such as shown here: I count at least 200 schools in the U.K. using the term, in the same context as in the U.S. Speaking of sources, can you back up your statment? Didn't think so. This is why your edits will be reverted. And no, the intent of the article is not to "relate the content to your own country." Interesting you brought that up, as it is what we talk about when violating NPOV. Funny, the first source on the article is a definition of special education from New Zealand. It's funny because I'm sure like so many other important points it's right under your nose and ignored.Jim Steele (talk) 23:56, 22 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Jim, If you actually take the trouble to read the results of your Google searches you will see that resource room in the UK means something completely different to the way that you use it in the US and has nothing to do with special education. It is a room where teaching resources are stored (ie, paperwork, equipment, etc) as is made clear in this reference:
 * http://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/index.aspx?articleid=5753 which specifically states. The reception is bright and airy with a large administration office, head teacher's room and medical room located nearby. There is a separate resource room where all the teaching materials are located." Words and phrases in American English and British English can often have very different meanings. Can you find a single reference to show that the term resource room as used in the US is universally recognised? Dahliarose (talk) 00:08, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't think that Jim intended to claim that absolutely every single hit is necessarily relevant. However, some of them clearly are relevant, as this search of "SEN resource room" shows, and at least on the first page of the results above, it looks like most of the hits are relevant.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:26, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Dahlia, I'd like to encourage you to add what you can, with the best sources you can find.
 * The article is written in the WP:ENGVAR of American English, so it's reasonable to use American terms where no others exist, especially when that helps us build the web to existing articles. (For example, you have complained about using what UK websites call a "SEN resource room", but you've never told me what you think the UK term actually is.)
 * Please don't remove sourced things just because they have the "wrong" term, but please do add whatever you think the "right" term is, as well as anything else you can add. For example, Support Services for Special Educational Needs: Proposed Models for Countries South of the Sahara supposedly says that most African countries have resource rooms (presumably in urban areas):  If we could find a copy of that book and verify the contents, then we could expand the article to include more information about special education in Africa.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:43, 23 June 2010 (UTC)


 * If we can agree to revert to the previous version of the article so that settings and criticism go back into the USA section then we can start building the article. I could then use sources to describe the settings in England, for instance. As the articles stands at present I don't know even know where to start. I don't think there is an equivalent in England for the American usage of the term resource room. In England OFSTED inspect all schools on a regular basis and have the best overview of the situation in the country overall. In this report http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/Ofsted-home/Publications-and-research/Browse-all-by/Education/Inclusion/Special-educational-needs/Inclusion-does-it-matter-where-pupils-are-taught they talk of "resourced provision, units & special classes in mainstream schools". I suspect different schools and different education authorities have their own terminology. The local primary school that my children attended had a unit for children with autism/Asperger's syndrome, and this was simply known as the "unit" or the "resource". Dahliarose (talk) 08:44, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, I'm not agreeing to any reverting of previous versions because you, Dhalia, haven't answered any of the simple questions we have asked. Such as if the resource room as you calim, is "American Jargon" why do schools in the U.K. use it the same way the U.S. does? My God, why must you rely on such circular reasoning?Jim Steele (talk) 17:32, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Can we try and calm this down a bit? I'm sure that Dahlia is right. I've never heard the term "resource room" used in the UK, and I don't think there's an alternative term; in fact we have no direct equivalent. What I do know for sure is that education systems around the world can differ a lot. It's hard to write about them in a way that is comprehensible to all, but I know it's worth trying. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Dahlia, no matter where you are in the world, every single student with SEN is educated (or not) in some kind of setting -- with non-SEN kids or without them, in the same building as non-SEN kids or not, etc. SEN settings are not a purely American invention, and relegating this idea to the USA-only section would both mislead the reader and cause non-USA readers to miss some of the information that seems to be most interesting to them.

I agree that every student will be educated in some kind of setting but the way that those settings are arranged and described varies hugely between one country and another, and the problem we're having is finding a vocabulary which can be understood by all readers whichever country they live in. We've already had about four UK editors who have expressed concerns about the section and the fact that it doesn't seem to relate to the UK system, and we've not yet had any input from editors from other countries. It's not our job to define what the settings are and the terminology used. We have to base everything on published sources. As this settings section stands it is original research because no source has been found to support the taxonomy on a worldwide basis. The sources are localised and conflicting. If I used UK sources I would describe the settings as (1) mainstream schools (2) specialist units or classrooms within or attached to mainstream schools (3) special schools (4) other settings (eg, home education, hospital) (5) exclusion (ie no education at all). That is how the system is described in all the UK sources like OFSTED reports. Dahliarose (talk) 18:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Similarly, I oppose putting the criticisms section in the USA-only section, because these criticisms (about how special education is implemented) really do apply everywhere: In every single place, special parents wonder whether their child is getting the best option, is feeling excluded, is being harmed by other SEN kids, and so forth.  If you disagree, then please start a new section, and in that section, explain to me (1) what one of the specific criticisms says and (2) how you know that this criticism never applies to the UK (or, for that matter, any country that offers special education services).  You can see an example above in my reply to Dolfrog (whose ongoing silence I'm assuming means that he finds the first criticism to be relevant to non-USA students.) WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I see that Judith has now had a go at this section and it is much improved. I don't have a problem with it as it now stands, except that the first paragraph needs a bit of translating. Dolfrog has left a message on my talk page to say that he/she is busy working on a project and can't do any editing at the moment. Dahliarose (talk) 18:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The Criticisms section? Judith made almost no changes except to retitle the section "Issues" and to remove the list formatting.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 18:34, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Quite a few changes seem to have been made if you look at the edit including all the incomprehensible stuff about lock step and homegenisation. history. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special_education&oldid=369199830
 * As someone whose added quite a lot of sources to this article, put in ample time and effort, I'm not going to let people's personal experiences/agendas influence how this article changes. For example, you say "I've never heard the term resource room used in the U.K." Right there you've given a great example of what we want to avoid in the article. Information based on "if I haven't seen it, it must not exist" fallacies. The sources I added were from journals authored by scholars from all over the world. Go ahead and check the diffs. I'd appreciate any feedback on them. Neither of you have presented any research to back up any of your claims, though we've asked for them. Never did I base what, say, inclusion was, based on what I've seen in the U.S. As a matter of fact, I've worked to make sure there were section explaining how special education is serviced in other couruntries (e.g. U.K. section). So there is the reason why I'll continue to make sure this article is not changed by people who refuse to read research (presented here on the talk page and elsewhere), base what should be in the article on personal experience and apparently have axes to grind thinking that the whole article is slanted to a U.S. audience, no matter what data to the contrary is presented to them. This is getting tiresome, so I'm going to end my portion of the talk page here, and in the meantime know that any edits made based without appropriate sources (or discussed here on the talk page fist) will be reverted.Jim Steele (talk) 00:52, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Jim, I know you've done a lot of work here, and provided many of the best sources. But it's still not "your" article, and we need to work out a voluntary consensus.
 * That said, removing sourced information because "I've never heard the term" is prohibited WP:Original research. WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * So I had a look through the google search that you helpfully did of UK .gov.uk sites with "resource room" and "special educational needs". This shows that the term is in very occasional use in the UK in the sense it is used in the US. There are perhaps four results of the first ten that show it used in that sense. But also up there in the first ten are "parent resource room" and "language resource room". It isn't in common use in the UK. I'm going to carry on searching in different ways to try and find out if the idea is used in other English-speaking countries. If we work together and assume good faith on this, it shouldn't be hard to find wording that informs the reader about special education across the world. Itsmejudith (talk) 08:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

I thought it might be helpful to check the massive online Oxford English Dictionary which can be found at http://dictionary.oed.com. The dictionary can be accessed at home free of charge in the UK with a library card. I don't know what the access arrangements are in other countries. This is their definition of resource room (accessed 24th June 2010):

resource room n. N. Amer. a facility within an institution providing specialized resources (esp. for educational purposes); spec. (within a school) a facility reserved for the instruction of children with learning difficulties, behavioural problems, etc. 1950 News (Newport, Rhode Island) 22 Mar. 10/4 William Ebeling, fifth and sixth grade teacher at Berkeley-Peckham school, told of the new *resource room at that school. 1988 Yankee June 18/1 As one who..suffers from dyslexia,..I was placed in a resource room five periods a week. The other kids called it the ‘rubber room’. 2002 N.Y. Times Mag. 28 Apr. 50/4 (advt.) The center has a resource room where women may learn the latest information about everything from heart arrhythmias to prevention of osteoporosis.

The OED seems to have a sliding scale to distinguish whether words are North American usage or commonly accepted usage, as can be seen from the related entries nearby (I've omitted the related quote sections for the sake of brevity).

resource teacher n. orig. N. Amer. (a) a teacher who provides educational resources and curriculum advice to other teachers; (b) a teacher who works with special needs or gifted children.

resource person n. chiefly N. Amer. a person with expertise in a certain area who may be called upon as necessary to perform a specific task, provide information, etc.

resource time n. the length of time a resource is required for a specific project. Dahliarose (talk) 11:11, 24 June 2010 (UTC)


 * It would be interesting to know how long it's been since these specific entries were revised. Twenty years ago, "resource room" probably was a purely North American term.  However, there are many non-North American sources from the last couple of years that use the term, and if the current OED revision project hasn't yet reached these entries, then these new sources may not be reflected in the definition.
 * In searching for a UK equivalent, you might consider something like "small group room". One UK source for special parents used this phrase as an equivalent term (or perhaps a description of) "resource room". WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:55, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * The OED is updated on a regular basis. If anyone wishes to revise an entry then they can submit a revision accompanied by the appropriate source material. I did this with one entry in the past and was told that the process would take about eighteen months to two years. If you can find suitable published sources then they can be submitted and the entry revised. I've looked at reports from OFSTED and the Department of Education but cannot find any reference to the term being used in official documents. That is not to say that the situation might not change, or perhaps the term is more widely used in academic publications. There will of course always be a few localised exceptions, as you have found. I would suggest for now that we replace the words resource room with something like "separate building or classroom with specialist resources". Dahliarose (talk) 18:13, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Recent changes to Issues
Just so I can be sure that we're talking about the same thing, here are the recent non-formatting changes to the newly titled "Issues" section, marked in bright red:

As you can see, there are really very few changes to the text: She added three words and deleted one off-topic sentence. The majority is completely untouched. I support these changes, but I don't think that the section is "much improved" or that "quite a few changes" were made. If anything, I hope that Judith will decide she was being overly restrained in her first efforts, and that she'll have another go at it. WhatamIdoing (talk) 20:42, 24 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Thanks. I thought the only important change was from "Criticisms" to "Issues", since we deprecate criticisms sections. I've been thinking hard about how I can best contribute to the article. I posted a follow-up at NPOVN, hoping to bring more people over. What I think I will do, as and when I have time, is to look up scholarly articles on special education, from UK based journals, and gradually add that UK perspective without taking out the American debates. Having searched for international data, and not found much, my impression is that educationists in English-speaking countries are looking at various models, especially those in the UK and USA, before they settle their opinions on what is best practice. Itsmejudith (talk) 09:22, 25 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Apologies for the confusion. That's what comes of trying to add comments in a hurry with another family member wanting to use the PC! I got as far as noticing that a UK editor had actually been permitted to make a change to the article without the usual repercussions which seems to a big step forward, and a sign that perhaps a compromise can be reached. In principle the idea of a general section on issues/criticisms is fine if they can be confined to general issues rather than country-specific issues, and written in a common vocabulary. Looking at this again, as I said before, if the first paragraph is to remain in a general section it requires a lot of editorial work to make it understandable. What is actually meant in this context by the word "disability". Are we talking about physical disability, mental disability or behavioural problems? The sentence about the "mainstreaming model" either needs to be removed or translated as "mainstreaming model" is US-specific terminology and I'm still not sure what the exact equivalent is elsewhere or indeed if there is one. Perhaps Judith could help to interpret. The last paragraph needs modifying in some way and should perhaps be prefaced with something like "In countries such as the USA where children are allocated places based on specific eligibility criteria..." From what I've read of the UK system, at least, the choice of setting is down to the parents and the child and there is no requirement to go to a specific school, though you would have to have a statement to get a place in a special school. It's quite a business to get a statement and depression and anxiety would not be sufficient cause, and such children would not be placed on any special programme. The reference is from a US publication, and I can't access the full publication. Do other countries have "eligibility criteria"? Dahliarose (talk) 00:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I've only had time to look at the first sentences, referenced to Greenwood 1991. I can only get the abstract of that paper at the moment. I have a concern with the sentences based on that reference, namely that it is clear that the researchers' questaions were not about SEN at all. They set out to investigate, with a control and comparison group, the effects of a system of tutoring upon children classfied as "at risk". That classification doesn't translate into all education systems. It really does not make sense in England where the definition of SEN is wide. The paper has been cited an impressive number of times and is obviously invaluable for people interested in peer tutoring. Unless it is clear from the full text that the researchers specifically investigated the effects of the presence of students with SEN upon others not assessed as SEN, then it will not be valid to refer to this paper. The following reference struck me as even odder, as it seems to be just an essay on a website, but perhaps it is a reprint of a peer-reviewed article. And I couldn't find "mainstream" when searching in it. Itsmejudith (talk) 14:06, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

A few quick comments:
 * Requiring a statement to attend a special school is, in itself, an eligibility criteria. Think about it:  "Only students with statements are eligible for placement in a special school."  Therefore I think we can reasonably conclude that the UK has eligibility criteria.  In fact, it'd be dreadful if they didn't:  If you set up a program exclusively for (e.g.) students with autism, you shouldn't allow non-autistic students to enroll in it.
 * An example of the at-risk issue might be illuminating. A very regular complaint from parents of teenagers with SEN (because this is the age at which this division appears) is that their "innocent" student whose special needs (e.g., due to Down syndrome) is being stuck in a classroom with a bunch of students whose special needs are due to Conduct disorder.  The kids with Downs are better off (in terms of academic achievement, social skills, and physical safety) if they're not stuck in a small classroom with potential abusers.  All of these kids have special educational needs; only some of them are "disabled" in the common sense.  (The schools' typical response to this complaint is that they can't afford to separate the students.)  WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:32, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Of course the UK systems (because the the English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish systems have differences and similarities) do operate with criteria. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to know what criteria and how they are applied. Until recently, I had assumed that all children in special schools had statements, but then someone (an educational researcher at an educational research seminar) told me that his child was at special school and didn't have a statement. And in fact you can see in the government stats for England that there are some children at special schools without statements. Admissions to schools in England is a highly politicised, fraught, fast-changing issue. The general principle is that the local authority (LEA, now called LA) controls admissions to most schools. Parents, in what is becoming a mantra "have a right to express a preference". Your child's statement may indicate that they need a place in a special school for autism, but there may not be a suitable place, or you may be offered a place but it is too far away or you want to contest it because for some reason you think it doesn't meet your child's needs. The criteria for admissions to secondary schools in a local area sent out to parents of 11 year olds can run to many pages. Ability to meet SEN is always there, alongside siblings already in the school, distance from school, religious observance etc etc. On top of all that - some areas run a lottery admissions system. Itsmejudith (talk) 17:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * I think that's the nub of the criticism: The schools set criteria for each service or program, and the parents either disagree with the criteria, or they think that the criteria were inappropriately applied to their children.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:42, 26 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Another point is that we don't actually have any "special education programs". There are some schools which specialise in teaching autistic children, for example, but they are not to be found in every education authority. I believe the writer Nick Hornby and his then wife ended up started their own privately run school for autistic children as they were unhappy with the state provision for their autistic child. If a child has a statement and is in a mainstream school it simply means that he gets his own classroom assistant who sits in lessons with him. The assistant might also be deployed to help other children in the same class with special needs but without a statement. The statement doesn't however put him on any special program within that school. Admissions are controlled by local authorities and the criteria applied vary from one authority to another. The criteria are not however not set by the schools, and the schools have to take whichever children are allocated to them (with the exception of grammar schools, religious schools and foundation schools). Private schools are obviously different and can set their own criteria. They tend to focus more on things like dyslexia. Dahliarose (talk) 11:37, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * It looks like the UK has quite a lot of SEN programs. Most of what the UK jargon terms "special units" are programs in the plain English definition.
 * I'd be surprised if SEN statements don't specify the child's educational program -- in the plain English "set of activities" sense. What's the point of having a statement that says, "Johnny has autism" if it doesn't then go on to say something useful, like, "so he needs the following types of special services, and the school should make the following types of accommodations"?  Surely a statement is more than a written medical diagnosis.  WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:54, 27 June 2010 (UTC)
 * A special unit is a place where the pupils are taught. It does not define how those pupils are taught. In the UK we have a National Curriculum which all children have to follow. I've found a useful article on special needs education in the 2004 CD version of the Microsoft Encarta encyclopaedia which summarises the statement process. It says: "Stage Two introduces the IEP (Individual Education Plan). The IEP is used in many different countries' approaches to planning for children with special needs. The IEP sets out the child's difficulties, the arrangements proposed to meet them, and the views of pupil and parents; it then sets clear targets and review dates. The SEN Coordinator is responsible for coordinating the programme and will work closely with the child's classroom teacher." It is therefore an individualised approach rather than having pre-set regional or national programmes. Children with statements in any case make up only around 2% of the school population in England. Around 18% of children will have special needs but no statement. Dahliarose (talk) 11:13, 28 June 2010 (UTC)