ABSTRACT
Special education encompasses a broad range of attributes, including, in the UK, giftedness. Learning disabilities fall into a number of categories, each of which merit different approaches. Some are cognitive, but at the limit, these may be difficult to separate from the motivational. Some of these cognitive difficulties have an organic cause, others not obviously so. Others are affective difficulties expressed in problems in relating to other people. There are also problems of physical delicacy and locomotive impairment. Last, but not least, some children have sensory limitations. The category of special needs is diverse both in respect of the range of cases that it covers and in the degree to which each condition affects learning. There are two broad approaches to the education of those with
special needs, each of which represents the endpoint of a spectrum. The first of these is complete integration, the second is separate provision. Between are mixed approaches which differentiate between conditions both in respect of type and degree. In the UK, following the Warnock Report of 1978, the tendency since 1981 has been to move a considerable way in the direction of integration. Recently, however, the author of that report seems to have partly changed her mind and has cast doubt on the appropriateness of integration for all children with special needs (Warnock 2005). In the USA on the other hand, one can see the beginnings of a movement towards separatism in some areas of special education (see Feinberg 1998 for a commentary), on the grounds that special education conditions should not be seen as forms of impairment and that some special groups have a distinct cultural identity that would be lost in a common educational environment.
