Special Education
Editor’s Note
The advent of NCLB has brought new attention to the effort to educate children with disabilities. The articles on this page offer ideas and resources that can help teachers reach every student.
Collaborating to Make Schools More Inclusive
Bill Henderson has long been a pioneer of inclusion for students with special needs. In 1989, he took the helm of the Patrick O’Hearn Elementary School in Boston and transformed it into one of the first fully inclusive schools in the country, nationally renowned for its diversity and high academic performance. Continue
Be a Behavior Detective
Improving prospects for challenging students
About 10 percent of the school population—or 9–13 million children—struggle with mental health problems. In a typical classroom of 20, chances are good that one or two students are dealing with serious psychosocial stressors relating to poverty, domestic violence, abuse and neglect, or a psychiatric disorder. There is also growing evidence that the number of children suffering the effects of trauma and those with autism-related social deficits is also on the rise. Continue
From Special Ed to Higher Ed
Transition planning for disabled students focuses on advocacy skills
When freshmen visit E. Lynne Golden, the director of the University of Hartford’s program for students with disabilities, she first asks them to identify their disability and describe how it limits their learning. To obtain accommodations from the college for their disability, they need to be able to ask for them, but many students just don’t know how to do it, she says. Continue
