How are special education teachers different from teachers in regular schools
They are different in terms of background qualifications as they do specialized studies for special education at the different levels (Diploma, Master's, MPhil, and/or PhD). Sometimes, depending on the school policy, these special education teachers provide the additional support for SEN students in the mainstream classroom.
Best regards,
Debra
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They are different in terms of background qualifications as they do specialized studies for special education at the different levels (Diploma, Master's, MPhil, and/or PhD). Sometimes, depending on the school policy, these special education teachers provide the additional support for SEN students in the mainstream classroom.
Best regards,
Debra
I think special education teachers need to possess special skills, so they can deal with SEN students
Hi dear,
I agree with Prof. Debra Sharon Ferdinand-James .
With my best regards!
Adel
Aside from the excellent comment by Prof. Debra and Prof. Haitham as well as the very valuable link by Dr. Javier, special education teachers are nurtured on best practices and endowed with skills in handling SEN students, of which regular teachers may not be previewed to. Many of them understand the nature of SEN students and have a 'consecrated heart' in attending to their special needs.
Thanks for asking this important question on education, Dr. Harry. Best regards
Dickson
At the moment, teachers in regular schools must have special education competencies! So... we hope... no differences will (soon) arise
My experience with the Indian system has been that the special educator use strategies to help the child to overcome the learning difficulty they are facing. This involves 1) Identification of a particular difficulty eg. dyslexia, fine motor skills etc. 2) Identification of the learning outcomes (expectations) 3) designing and planning exercises to overcome/ alleviate the effect of the difficulty.
Your question implies that SEN teachers are in separate schools (not 'regular' ones.) The role of the SEN teacher will also be strongly influenced by education policies around inclusion of children with special needs. If the aim is to include as many as possible in the mainstream classroom, SEN teachers may have a role in supporting the teacher around how to help particular children who need specific types of help. In a school/classroom which is all SEN, there might be a smaller class and a teacher who specialises in children with one particular learning difficulty, so their role is as lead teacher rather than support.
Depending on what you are researching, it might also be worth looking at the difference between teachers who work with children with specific learning difficulties, and those who work with children with motor or sensory disabilities (who may of course have no learning problems) and those with behavioural problems. All of them have special needs, but the type of support they need, and therefore the role of the SEN teacher, will be very different.
It might also be worth looking at the difference between an Educational Psychologist (who will have a degree in Psychology and might specialise in diagnosis) and the SEN teacher who works with children daily.
As stated previously, special education teachers have different training backgrounds. I teach a self-contained classroom for high school students with severe and profound multiple disabilities: physical impairments, intellectual disabilities, sensory impairments, vision and hearing impairments, and nonverbal. I am responsible for academic and transition curriculum materials and lesson plans (always need to be modified), integrated therapies (OT/Pt, speech), self-help and daily living needs (eating, toileting, etc.), testing, and IEPs. I also have students on my caseload that are in general education full-time. I am responsible for their IEPs and monitoring their grades.
With inclusion and universal design for learning becoming more emphasized, I can see the need for general education teachers to need more training and experience related to special education. The focus should be on the individual student's needs and abilities. We have to stop the "one size fits all" approach. Every student is special and unique.
The working environment of special education teachers is special education school, and the object of work is SEN.
The working environment of the ordinary school teachers is the regular school, and the object of the work is the normal developing students. However, with the development of inclusion education, more and more regular school teachers have taken on the education of SEN students.
In Chinese, we often think that "an excellent special education teachers to be qualified for regular school teacher's role, and a regular school teacher maybe not qualified for the special education teacher's role, the biggest difference is that the two should have professional knowledge and professional skills. It is believed that in the future, the regular school teachers is becoming more and more to be inclusion education teacher.
As suggested, though IE seems to be a very lucrative option for the schools to follow but with a class ratio of 40:1 which exist in a mainstream schools in India, it becomes difficult for a normal school teacher to give the kind of attention needed. Hence these students are referred to special educators, who then support the class teachers to plan the curriculum. The system is in a nascent stage, still a lot of research has to conducted to support the idea of Inclusion. An objective evaluation in terms of before and after effects of inclusion have to be studied in entirety.
Of course the specialized education for SPED teachers is very important. But the person themselves is just as important. From the onset, the SPED students must feel welcome and that they have come into a supportive and understanding environment. The Gen Ed teacher works with specific curriculum that needs to be taught so that by the time for standardized state testing, the students have mastered the goals. The Gen Ed teacher needs to be on the lookout for students who are not SPED, but who may still need 'interventions' to stay at pace with their peers. The SPED students need to be viewed individualistically. Their needs are set by their individualized education plan and that plan reflects the requirements for THAT child based on their disabilities / difficulties. Where the Gen Ed teacher may be able to teach 24 from 30 as a group, and provide intervention for 6 others, the SPED teacher must provide 15 individualistic programs, in resource, everyday, for their students. In an inclusion environment, the SPED teacher must shuffle between 4 to 6 students in a Gen Ed classroom (every period of the day) to do their best to keep the students learning while the Gen Ed teacher teaches the core subject matter. Finally, the expectations of the SPED teacher need to be 'flexible'. I'm not sure if this rule of thumb applies everywhere, but I use the guideline; 'half as much learning in twice as much time'. It reduces the frustration potentials and allows for many more 'Hurrah!!' moments as the students progress through some areas on target, or ahead. The well qualified Gen Ed teacher and SPED teacher are both excellent at what they do, but they are challenged in very different ways. Perhaps a graphic; Gen Ed = the norm of the distribution +/- 2 sigma. SPED engages with ALMOST everybody else. (The gifted and talented even need individualized instruction to maximize their potential; sometimes through Special Education)
Special education requires special skills to teach special people, hence its name. As such, a teacher of such special people should have an additional skill to be able to transfer knowledge to them. The difference lies in the means/skill for transferring knowledge to students.
I am really loving what I'm reading. Thanks to all my honorable academicians and non-academicians who responded.
Hi, I am Asfand Yar Qureshi from Bahauddin Zakariya University Multan, Pakistan. I am Independent Research Consultant in the fileds of Education & Social Sciences.
I do agree with Prof. Debra Sharon Ferdinand-James. In addition, special education teachers if really skilled, they are specialized in teaching children with special care by symbols, AV Aids, braille, and other kinds of Assistive technologies as well. I think that in every school THERE SHOULD BE AN INCLUSIVE EDUCATION SYSTEM. TEACHERS OF REGULAR SCHOOLS MUST BE HAVE INCLUSIVE EDUCATION SKILLS.
One of the primary differences in regular and special education teachers stems from the expertise each brings to the teaching profession. Regular teachers are generally required to have knowledge of pedagogical methods for special student populations that can also be used for regular populations like Universal Design for Learning (UDL). However regular education teachers are also content specific or subject matter experts in specific core subjects (mathematics, history, language, science. etc.). Special education teachers generally have expertise in pedagogical methods (knowing about teaching strategies) and may not have core content specific expertise or be core subject matter experts (knowing about the subject taught). Kathryn F. Cochran, James A. DeRuiter, and Richard A. King in Pedagogical Content Knowing: An Integrative Model for Teacher Preparation examine aspects of these concepts.
The main difference between teachers of special education and regular classroom teachers, is the knowledge they must have of the different situations that are presented in the students because of some cognitive disability, this is due to giftedness or disability. with which he must work in a joint manner with his regional classroom colleagues and the families of the children who present difficulties in school to facilitate participation and learning without being removed from the regular classroom. in this sense, it is differentiated by the high sensitivity towards educational inclusion.
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Their differences is in relation to type of tasks they need to discharge. Teachers at Special schools becomes care givers, because they attend to all aspects of a learners. Be it emotional, psychological, physical and educational.
Thank you all for your comments! I am learning a lot from you all! I appreciate the comment that "more and more, all school teachers will definitely need to be inclusion education teachers," as all of us as teachers do have children with different abilities and therefore, we need to provide the modifications and interventions to have them become successful members of our society.
There should be no difference, but the students and objective. All teaching.should be special and the teacher a communicator who at any circunstance able to pass his message across.
Vilemar Magalhães
We have at University Belgrade (Serbia) Faculty for special education with many departments for different handicaps. You can see that on internet.
Special education is tough !!!!!I am sure teachers are/ have to be gifted to deal with what they see and strength to carry out their job...
Because Special education teacher deals with the special students
and other teacher deals with the ordinary students so its different.
https://www.mentalhelp.net/articles/special-education-vs-regular-education/
https://www.sokanu.com/careers/special-education-teacher/
Dear,
thanks for sharing.
I follow the answer of the illustrious Profa. Dra. Debra.
The differences are that for one special education teachers have to take different courses and must specialise in special education for their masters or doctorate. Also they provide additional supports and assistance to students that regular education teachers do not need to provide. However, in many countries, special education is educational apartheid where students with disabilities are separate and unequal to regular ed students. Special ed students are taught less academics and more life skills or indepêndent living skills and for this reason, many of them graduate with a lower quality education and thus result in menial jobs or they go on social services or welfare and become tax users instead of tax payers. The teachers do not provide the same academic, intellectual, rigorous education that students in the regular system receive. This needs to change. My husband has an intellectual disability and was a victim of special ed, receiving a less than academic education and this is common in much of the Western world.
Dr Réagan
ISTANDWITHELI
They are different because the teachers of special education have to condescend themselves to the techniques of special education in order to carry their students along. Everything about these crops of teachers' style of teaching must be special and not ordinary.
Dr. Lavorata, I have enjoyed reading your contribution. Your facts were well explained
The basic goal of special education is to provide exceptional children with disabilities which will prevent them from fully benefiting from traditional educational approaches with specialized instruction and intervention sufficient to enable them to benefit from their education.
Many people have the misconception that special education is merely a watered-down version of regular education. This is understandable, but incorrect. In fact, the opposite is often true. Special education is in many ways more intensive than conventional education.
Special education differs from regular education in two ways:
- Different instructional methods are used, and
- Additional specialists (specialized teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, aides, social workers, etc.) are involved beyond regular classroom teachers. These professionals' specialized skills are matched to the specialized needs of identified children.
Special education uses intensive, individualized instructional methods. Most special education students will work on traditional academic content areas such as reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. In addition to traditional academic content, many exceptional students also benefit from a functional curriculum. A Functional Curriculum is designed to help students learn basic daily living skills they have not developed on their own such as toileting, eating, grooming, using money, filling out forms, communicating basic needs, and following directions that a teacher or boss gives them. Functional curriculums teach students the basic skills required for independent living.
Traditional and functional curricula are augmented on a child-by-child, as needed basis by specialty services that help individual children to manage or overcome impediments to their learning. Intervention services students may receive at school include physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), speech and language therapy, and other related services. These specialties serve several purposes: 1) to help prevent minor problems from becoming a disability, 2) to prevent the effects of a disability from getting worse, 3) to resolve problems in connection with a disability, or 4) to teach students to complete certain tasks in spite of their disability.
For example, psychological and other specialists may collaborate to create a behavior plan designed to help a child reduce acting-out behaviors, learn to meet their daily living needs, and to focus their energy on learning. A behavior plan is a written plan that specifies what positive behaviors the student should be exhibiting, such as completing work in a timely manner, or sharing toys with other students during group activities. The behavior plan also specifies what tools school staff can use to motivate students to model those appropriate behaviors. Some school staff and families think that behavior plans should mainly create planned consequences for a student's misbehavior, but these punishment-oriented plans often do not get the full benefits that a more comprehensive behavior plan could provide. Both children in regular education and special education can benefit from behavior plans, but often, children with special needs will need a more detailed plan.
regards
Special education differs from regular education in two ways:
Different instructional methods are used, and
Additional specialists (specialized teachers, speech therapists, occupational therapists, physical therapists, aides, social workers, etc.) are involved beyond regular classroom teachers. These professionals' specialized skills are matched to the specialized needs of identified children.
Special education uses intensive, individualized instructional methods. Most special education students will work on traditional academic content areas such as reading, writing, math, social studies, and science. In addition to traditional academic content, many exceptional students also benefit from a functional curriculum. A Functional Curriculum is designed to help students learn basic daily living skills they have not developed on their own such as toileting, eating, grooming, using money, filling out forms, communicating basic needs, and following directions that a teacher or boss gives them. Functional curriculums teach students the basic skills required for independent living.
Traditional and functional curricula are augmented on a child-by-child, as needed basis by specialty services that help individual children to manage or overcome impediments to their learning. Intervention services students may receive at school include physical therapy (PT), occupational therapy (OT), speech and language therapy, and other related services. These specialties serve several purposes: 1) to help prevent minor problems from becoming a disability, 2) to prevent the effects of a disability from getting worse, 3) to resolve problems in connection with a disability, or 4) to teach students to complete certain tasks in spite of their disability.
For example, psychological and other specialists may collaborate to create a behavior plan designed to help a child reduce acting-out behaviors, learn to meet their daily living needs, and to focus their energy on learning. A behavior plan is a written plan that specifies what positive behaviors the student should be exhibiting, such as completing work in a timely manner, or sharing toys with other students during group activities. The behavior plan also specifies what tools school staff can use to motivate students to model those appropriate behaviors. Some school staff and families think that behavior plans should mainly create planned consequences for a student's misbehavior, but these punishment-oriented plans often do not get the full benefits that a more comprehensive behavior plan could provide. Both children in regular education and special education can benefit from behavior plans, but often, children with special needs will need a more detailed plan.
I enjoyed reading your contribution. It is full of insights and valuable information. Thank you Nima
Omotayo, perhaps your area is not in education; however, the discussion here are highly detailed to enhance your understanding.
Special education teachers require special effort and I side with you Nada
Special education teachers are special in the sense that they have all the skills to teach a class of students without special needs. They then go ahead and acquire additional skills to teach children with special needs
As I can reply, based on the experience from my home country, Greece, special education is a very wide field. Each child that attends special school is almost a different case (dyslexia of different levels, autism, hearing loss). Teachers receive specialised education, at undergraduate, postgraduate or (maybe in the past) even in-service training level.
Whatever the case, it really depends on the teachers motivation and vision.
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