The Process of Tranisitioning the Special Education Student into the Mainstream Upon Completion of High School

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THE PROCESS OF TRANISITIONING THE SPECIAL EDUCATION STUDENT INTO THE MAINSTREAM UPON COMPLETION OF HIGH SCHOOL

INTRODUCTION

Learning Disability (LD ) symptoms are often spotted by a child 's parents much before his /her teachers at school manage to notice them . But , the trained eyes of an educationist at school are usually what detect the presence of a problem . Trouble with schoolwork is one of the first indicators of learning disability . If your child isn 't reading right in class then his /her

school will soon be suspecting disabled learning skills

But a mere difficulty with learning is not all that a school takes into consideration while identifying LD in students . It takes a number of consultations with the school psychologist and , if required , external psychologists or even neuropsychologists for the school and the parents to pinpoint traces of LD in a child . For the analysis to prove a success the child has to undergo a variety of rigorous tests and be observed closely by his /her class teacher over a period of time . It has been reported that about 7 of children suffer from this malady in US and 9 .5 worldwide (Powell , 49-53

LD has been closely associated with the Intelligence Quotient (IQ ) of the sufferer from the very beginning . For a long time it was thought that a difference between the IQ scores of an individual and his /her Achievement scores indicated the presence of a LD of some kind . This conclusion was reached , initially , because a discrepancy between ones IQ scores and Achievement scores was thought to reflect incapacity on the individual 's part to attain his full potential . A person with high IQ scores is supposed to be intelligent . Therefore , if someone with a high IQ score is found to have a low achievement score then it is usually thought that something (besides the individual 's own capability ) is keeping him /her from success . This obstacle has (till quite recently been thought to be a disability in learning

Despite having dominated the usual school systems and other related government programs for years this Discrepancy Model ' of determining the presence of LD has now come under fire . Researchers such as Aaron Mascolo and Flanagan have individually criticized the model vehemently Fresh researches have established that a difference between IQ and achievement score alone is not proof enough of an individual 's learning disability . Also , diagnosing LD merely in terms of the Discrepancy model ' does not let us know exactly how effective a certain treatment will be on the sufferer because people with low IQ scores and low achievement scores have been found to squeeze out as much profit from a treatment as a person with high IQ scores but low achievement scores

Researchers have also expressed dissatisfaction with the present diagnostic processes and instead advocated a far more treatment-oriented approach in the form of the RTI or response to intervention diagnostic process . In this process (suggested by Fletcher in 2003 ) all...