Special Education Legislation Individualized Education Program Developing

Special Education Legislation

Individualized Education Program

Developing Standard-Based Individualized Education Program Objectives for Students with Significant Needs. By Sharon Lynch and Paula Adams.

Due to the need to provide equitable education and knowledge to children with special needs, the idea of Individualized Education Program (IEP) comes in handy to help make this a reality. It is upon the government's recognition of the needs of the children who have conditions that may not allow them to learn effectively or at the same speed with other children given the standard learning environment that it implemented various measures to ensure that no child is left behind in fulfilling their learning needs. Factually, these kids with learning impediments may not necessarily learn the same level of concept and complexity of ideas, hence the need to have their own individualized system that will impart the necessary skills and knowledge in them.

The attached article articulates some of the tenets of the IEP and the way they can be implemented and the accompanying benefits thereof. The article indicates that IEP needs to note how the individual disabilities affect the learning of the particular students. This is accompanied by the measurable goals that need to be taken to ensure the children effectively learn. In as much as there is the narrowing of the general curriculum in approaching the IEP and the learning needs of the children, there is rampant integration of the functional content into the learning. This ensures that the teaching of these children is not rigid but flexible enough to accommodate even the most specific needs of this category of children. Notably, the general curriculum should not restrict these teachers to adhere strictly to science, math, science or language. Indeed doing so would defeat the meaning of the IEP and particularly the individualization aspect.

The IEP is also noted to require goals and objectives that take into account the special needs as well as the curriculum unlike the traditional approach of a commercially-published criterion. The problem with these criterions was that they often failed to meet the State standards and hence never catered enough for the children with special needs.

A good IEP also takes care of the need for intense instruction support for the learner bearing in mind that the access to the general curriculum is not enough in the case of the special needs learners. There is need here for a curriculum that takes into account the academic tasks and hence taking care of the functional materials needed as well as the environment. This will make the work of the teachers easier since it is very tricky to find out the threshold of the curriculum requirement and how this is met in their handling of this category of learners.

When developing the IEP, there is also the need to take into account the cognitive level of the learners. It is important that some special needs learners may not relate to words, not even images but to concrete objects. Those working at the symbolic level may not have reached the capability of to understand conventional symbols and their primary communication means may be confined to the body movements, facial expressions and even vocalization and these are details that need to be covered appropriately.