ABSTRACT
The extract above presents a definition of ‘special educational needs’ accepted in England and Wales at the present time. Most developed countries have fairly similar views on what constitutes a ‘special need’. In Australia, for example, Lang and Berberich (1995) explain that the term ‘children with special needs’ refers primarily to children whose physical or intellectual capacities have been affected to some degree so that their participation in teaching and learning situations requires assistance. These writers add later that ‘Special needs children are those whose needs are usually beyond the training and prior working experience of many classroom teachers and administrators’ (Lang and Berberich 1995:16). In the US, under a Federal Law definition, students with special needs are those who are eligible for special services because their disability or impairment affects their educational performance. Included within this broad category are children with learning disability, speech or language disorders, mental retardation (intellectual disability), emotional disturbance, autism, hearing impairment, vision impairment, deaf-blindness, orthopaedic impairments, traumatic brain injury, chronic health conditions, and severe and multiple disabilities. To this long list one can also add children who have been described in the past as ‘slow learners’, children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and children who are at risk of developing learning problems due to second language difficulties (Friend and Bursuck 2002). Many writers point out that
gifted and talented students also have special educational needs-but not all countries include the category of gifted in their policies for special education services. With or without the inclusion of gifted and talented children, the population of students with special educational needs is extremely diverse, and the education of these children presents a major and ongoing challenge to teachers everywhere.
