An Island of Light in the Placement of Students with Disabilities
By: Michael Poda
Tags: Education, Disability

One of the greatest challenges that any educator can face is how to diagnose and cope with a student in their classroom who has any sort of learning disability. If they are prematurely diagnosed before enough evidence is given, it could set them back many years in their education for nearly no reason and could alienate them from their peers causing their social constructs to be developed in an inefficient way. Because of this, we seem to always want to keep these children in what is dubbed the least restrictive environment, or the most normal situation they can be placed into where they can be successful. This may not always be the best place for a student; however, sometimes the efforts given to them may in fact end up causing them to fall farther and farther behind when they could have just been placed in a situation with others in the same situation as they are. Ahrams specifically states that “From a social-emotional perspective, students receiving special education services typically have limited interactions with academically mainstreamed peers and often face a social stigmatization associated with being labeled intellectually, physically, or emotionally disabled.”

Before we look at least restrictive environments, however, let’s take a look at some of the phenomena that occur when placing students on a list of children with special needs. Throughout the history of schools there has been a large discrepancy in the number of majority children, white students, and the amount of minority children, specifically blacks and latinos, being listed as special needs.

Ahrams p. 5

As can be seen on the chart the discrepancy between whites and minorities is clearly palpable and only three of the statistics for the rate of whites diagnosed with a disability is over 1.00 (interestingly they are also the only ones where they outweigh the minorities and happen in the autism and speech categories, but that is a discussion for another time.) Is it possible that there is just a genetic predisposition to develop these problems at a higher rate for these races? Yes, but there is another possibility. When a person gets an idea in their head they tend to try to match their experiences with their preconceived patterns. In the case of diagnosing students with intangible mental disabilities this becomes a problem as there seems to be a prevalent cultural idea that minorities are dumber than people of Caucasian ethnicity. I think this plays a significant role in the outcome of tests, especially if there are parts of diagnostic tests done in person with someone doing evaluations. On the other side of the spectrum, more tangible disabilities such as vision and hearing come out to have more balanced numbers (Ahrams 4).

Now we run into the idea of whether or not to place a child in the least restrictive environment and having them try to keep up with their peers. Let’s look at the deaf community. According to research done by Gallaudet University, one of the most prestigious higher education, deaf schools in the country, there is actually a higher percentage of white people that are diagnosed with hearing impairment than other ethnic groups, but there are enough of the others combined that the spread would be about 50/50 of whites to nonwhites. This leads me to think of perhaps putting people with kind of learning disability together would actually benefit them more than trying to give them accommodations. When speaking about deaf children in the public school system, Teague Albenesius, a master’s student for Deaf Education at Gallaudet University said, “deaf kids typically struggle with language because of how few role models they have in public schools (Albenesius).” It would most likely be best that all the hearing impaired students would just be grouped together. In this scenario, what may be dubbed as the “most restrictive environment” would actually be much more helpful to the students than trying to keep them in public schooling.

There are obviously discrepancies between the amount of minorities placed in special needs classes from the amount of white students. This seems to be a social problem that needs to be addressed, but I always try to find the right side in the dark. Sometimes having a disability can bring a student closer to others in the same situation as them. The deaf community is a great example of this, and there is nothing but good that seems to come out of them being placed in a special school specifically for them. It can actually be the most helpful choice a parent could make for their child in that situation. I realize that this is just one small example out of the many possible disabilities a child could possibly have, but sometimes it is good to step back and look at a brighter side of the picture.

Ahram, Joey, Edward Fergu, and Pedro Noguera. “Addressing Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality in Special Education: Case Studies of Suburban School Districts.” Teachers College Record 133.10 (2011): 2233–266. Web.

Albenesius, Teague. “Deaf Students in Public Schools.” Telephone interview. 27 May 2016.

Judith, Holt, Sue Hotto, and Kevin Cole. “DEMOGRAPHIC ASPECTS OF HEARING IMPAIRMENT: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Third Edition, 1994.” Research.gallaudet.edu. Center for Assessment and Demographic Studies Gallaudet University, 21 Mar. 2012. Web. 27 May 2016.