Special education, or special needs education, is the practice of educating students with special needs in a way that addresses their individual differences and needs. Special education is the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, accessible settings, and other interventions designed to help learners with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and community than would be available if the student were only given access to a typical classroom education. The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) defines Special Education as "specially designed instruction, at no cost to the parents, to meet the unique needs of a child with a disability," but still, what exactly is Special Education? Often met with an ambiguous definition, the umbrella term of Special Education broadly identifies the academic, physical, cognitive and social-emotional instruction offered to children who are faced with one or more disabilities. Students with special needs, such as learning differences, mental health issues, specific disabilities (physical or developmental), and giftedness, are those whose needs are addressed within the classroom setting. However, generally, the term "special education" refers specifically to students with learning disabilities, mental conditions, and other disabling conditions. The provision of education to people with disabilities or learning differences differs from country to country, and state to state. The ability of a student to access a particular setting depends on the availability of services, location, family choice, or government policy. Image shows child coloring in a picture, colored pencils and completed colored pictures are scattered on the desk. Image shows child coloring in a picture, colored pencils and completed colored pictures are scattered on the desk. In the United States, The Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is dedicated to improving results for children and youth with disabilities ages birth through 21 by providing leadership and financial support to assist states and local districts. The U.S. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) authorizes formula grants to states, and discretionary grants to institutions of higher education and other non-profit organizations to support research, demonstrations, technical assistance and dissemination, technology and personnel development and parent-training and information centers. The Individual's with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 was signed into law on December 3, 2004. As the nation's special education law, IDEA serves approximately 6.8 million children and youth with disabilities. Special educators have historically described a cascade of services, in which students with special needs receive services in varying degrees based on the degree to which they interact with the general school population. Inclusion

1. Learners with Additional Needs
Chapter 6

2. Learning Objective
At the end of this chapter, the student should be able to:
• Identify the various additional needs learners might have:
• Differentiate the additional needs from one another:
• Recognize the characteristics of learners with additional needs.

3. Learners with Additional Needs
Chapter 6

4. Learners who are gifted and talented
• Are students with higher abilities than average and are often referred as
gifted students.
• Are students whose talents, abilities, and potentials are developmentally
advanced.
• They require special provisions to meet their educational needs, thus,
presenting unique challenge to teachers.
• They often finish tasks ahead and might ask for more creative tasks or
exercises.
• Exciting and energizing activities should be provided to continuously keep
them motivated.

5. Learners who are gifted and talented
• Are students with exceptional abilities from all socioeconomic, ethnic, and
cultural populations.
• Gifted- students with extraordinary abilities in various academic areas.
• Talented- focuses on students with extra ordinary abilities in a specific area.

6. To identify gifted and talented students:
•Locate the domain of giftedness
•Describe the students’ level of giftedness
•Describe the students’ fields of talent

7. Learning Characteristics
Not all learners will exhibit the
learning characteristics listed below.
However, these are the common
manifestation of gifted and talented
learners.
• High levels of intellectual curiosity
• Reads actively
• High degree of task commitment
• Keen power observation
• Highly verbal
• Gets bored easily
• Can retain and recall information
• Excited about learning new
concepts
• Independence of learning
• Good comprehension of complex
context
• Strong, well-developed imagination
• Looks for new ways to do things
• Often gives uncommon responses
to common questions.

8. General Adaptation Education
These are some strategies for teaching gifted students:
• Teachers may give enrichment exercise that will allow learners to study the
same topic at a more advance level.
• Acceleration can let students who are gifted and talented can move at their
own pace thus resulting to in completing two grade levels in one school year.
• Open-ended activities with no right or wrong answers can be provided,
emphasizing on divergent thinking wherein there are more possibilities than
pre-determined answers.

9. General Adaptation Education
These are some strategies for teaching gifted students:
• Leadership roles can be given to gifted students since studies have known
that gifted students are often socially immature.
• Extensive reading on subjects of their own interest may be coordinated with
the school librarian to further broad their knowledge.
• Long-terms activities may be provided, that will give the gifted students an
opportunity to be engaged for an extended period of time.

10. Learners with difficulty seeing
• Are students with hampered or restricted vision.
• Are students with issues regarding sight that interfere with academics.
• Are students with impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely
affects a child’s educational performance, which includes both partial sight
and blindness.
• These students may need to have their eyesight corrected by wearing or
other optical devices.

11. Identification
• Physical signs: crossed eyes, squinting, and eyes
that turn outwards.
• They may also be clumsy, usually bumping into
objects which causes them to fall down.
• They like to sit near the instructional materials or at
times would stand up and go near the visual aids.
• Poor eye-hand coordination (handwriting)
• Poor performance in sport activities
• Difficulty reading and writing

12. Learning Characteristics
• Students have restricted ways to learn incidentally from their surroundings
since most of them learn through visual cues.
• Other senses are used to acquire knowledge.
• Due to the limited ability to explore the environment, low motivation to
discover is present.

13. General Educational Adaptations
Modification in teaching is needed to accommodate students with difficulty
seeing.
• If the use of books is part of your lesson, students with difficulty seeing should
be informed ahead of time so that they can be ordered in braille or in an audio
recorded format.
• Portions of textbooks and other printed materials may be recorded so that
visually impaired students can listen instead of focusing on the visual
presentation.
• All words written on the board should be read clearly.

14. General Educational Adaptations
Modification in teaching is needed to accommodate students with difficulty
seeing.
• Students with difficulty seeing should be seated near the board so that they
can easily move close to the instructional materials used during the lesson.
• A buddy can be assigned to a student with difficulty seeing as needed. This
can be crucial to assist in the mobility of the student such as going to the
other places in school during the day.
• Students with difficulty seeing might need more time to complete a task or
homework. This might be on a case to case basis.

15. General Educational Adaptations
Modification in teaching is needed to accommodate students with difficulty
seeing.
• Teachers should be aware of terminology that would require visual acuity
(such as over there or like this one) which the impaired student may not
possess.
• Teachers should monitor the students closely to know who needs extra time
in completing tasks.

16. Learners with Difficulty Hearing
• Students with an issue regarding hearing that interferes with academics.
• It is an impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that
adversely affects a child’s educational performance but is not included under
the definition of deafness (hearing loss above 90 decibels).
• A hearing loss below 90 decibels.
• The main problem of students with hearing impairment is communication.

17. Learners with Difficulty Hearing
• Factors affecting their communication skill:
• Intelligence
• Personality
• Degree and nature of deafness
• Residual hearing
• Family environment
• Age of onset

18. Identification
• Speaking loudly
• Positioning ear toward the direction of
the one speaking
• Asking for information to be repeated
again and again
• Delayed development of speech
• Watching the face of the speaker
intently
• Favoring one ear
• Not responding when called
• Has difficulty following direction
• Does not mind loud noises
• Leaning close to the source of
sounds

19. Learning Characteristics
• Miss out daily conversations causing to have limited experiences.
• Deficiencies in language
• Most learners with difficulty hearing use various methods of communication:
hearing aids, combined with lip-reading (oral)
• They might have delayed communication skills since the development of
vocabulary is slower.
• They understand the concept when the sentence structure is simpler.
• Interacting to students can be a challenge so they prefer working on their
own.
• Some use note-takers.

20. General Educational Adaptation
• Teachers should help students with difficulty hearing to use the residual
hearing they may have.
• Teachers should help students develop the ability for speech reading or
watching other’s lips, mouth, and expressions.
• Teachers should be mindful to face the class at all times when presenting
information while ensuring that the students with difficulty hearing sit near
them.
• Exaggerating the pronunciation of words should not be done for it just makes
it difficult for the student with difficulty hearing.

21. General Educational Adaptation
• Directions, as well as important parts of the lesson, should always be written
on the board.
• Written or pictorial directions instead of verbal directions may be given.
• Steps to an activity may be physically acted out instead of verbally given.
• A variety of multi-sensory activities should be given to allow the students to
focus on their learning strengths.
• Teachers should be more patient when waiting to hear a response from
hearing-impaired student which may take longer than usual.

22. Thank You
To be continued..