Children with disabilities often spent their whole lives hidden away in residential school settings where they received little or no training to prepare them for independent living or employment. It's been a century of change for exceptional children and their educators. But while much progress has been made, Bill Gowling, Canadian director of the Council For Exceptional Children in Ottawa, is not optimistic about the future of special education in Canada.
Special education is a big-ticket item and is hardest hit when governments slash spending.
This has significantly affected schools' ability to keep pace with changing ideologies, particularly inclusion. The underlying supposition in inclusive programs is that all children will be based in the classrooms they would attend if they did not have a disability, explains Margret Winzer, an associate professor at the University of Lethbridge and author of Children With Exceptionalities in Canadian Classrooms . This ignores the fact that a disability does make a child different. In special schools or segregated settings, Winzer says, significant resources are dedicated to individual students to ensure their needs are met. Special education continues to involve many settings with different personnel, but the majority of exceptional children are placed in community schools and may be integrated in a regular classroom for all or part of the day.