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Learning Disabilities

WhatamIdoing wrote "Undid revision 504425995 by Dolfrog (talk) Wrong sort of disability: learning disabilities aren't usually evident from medical history alone" Well please could you inform the rest of the world what other issues cause learning disabilities other than issues which have a medical / clinical origin. dolfrog ( talk) 01:31, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood the reason why your edit was reverted. You added the phrase to a sentence specifically discussing medical diagnosis. Learning disabilities (such as dyslexia) are not normally diagnosed in a medical context but are rather diagnosed in an educational context. Roger ( talk) 08:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Dyslexia has underlying medical or clinical causes that require further investigation. Dyslexia is merely a screening process for various medical/ cognitive disabilities. There is no misunderstanding on my part, more a lack of knowledge about these issues from others. dolfrog ( talk) 09:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Sure, I can give an example: paralysis of the hand is a disability that (1) is obvious from medical records and (2) affects the student's ability to use a pencil in school.
Dyslexia, by contrast, is not usually evident in the medical records. Dyslexia is typically discovered because of problems in school, not because of diseases, injuries, or medical conditions that appeared before attending school. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:13, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Potential Dyslexic can be identified preschool, the research is there, the problem would appear to the the in adequate training of both medical and educational professionals in the USA, which from what you have said would appear to be at least a decade behind the international research. You seem to be claiming some form of ownership of this article, and that you personally are the font of all information. I would suggest you have a look at the research paper collection on my user page and catch up. And dolfrog ( talk) 01:09, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
The reason the underlying cognitive disabilities are not identified pre-school, which have been present since birth, is that the school environment may provide the first chance to observe genetic disability and suggest the requird assessment and diagnosis. Many of these issues are not defined as a disabiliyt until the age og maturation 6-8 years of age when children stop growing out of natural developmental issues. But may be this is not part of the marketing of education in the US political system, which would prefer such disabilities did not exist. dolfrog ( talk) 01:20, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand how it could not be self-evident that some types of learning disabilities are not detected by medical doctors. There is no reason a medical doctor would be testing a child's ability to learn as part of a medical exam as it is not a medical issue. "Learning disabilities" is actually a very broad topic with a whole spectrum of different issues. Some students have extreme problems such as severe autism or brain injuries which would almost certainly be obvious to a medical doctor, while for others it may be as simple as them having lousy parents who never bothered to teach them how to read. We need to be cognizant of the fact that we are talking about a many-faceted issue here. That is exactly why there are so many different approaches to dealing with learning disabilities. That schools in some places apparently practice a "one size fits all" approach does not mean that everyone does it that way. I think this issue may have come to a point where WP:DR in some form is needed to help us move forward. Possibly an WP:RFC in order to gather a broader spectrum of participants in the discussion. Beeblebrox ( talk) 15:49, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Teaching children to read is the responsibility of the education system not parents, and having lousy parents is not a cause of learning disability. The first problem in many countries is that formal education begin before the age of developmental maturation 7-8 years of age. Which means that purely developmental issues can be miss understood as a learning disability, which those who do not have a cognitive disability will grow out of. Yes there is a wide spectrum of medical issues from the issues that can cause mild dyslexia to severe autism etc. And many of these issues are still subject to rigorous international research. The medical conditons which can cause issues such as dyslexia may be beyond the qualifications of a local medical professional and may require more specialist assessment and diagnosis, there are many uniformed medical professionals. My family all have one of those clinical disabilities which can be hard to identify and diagnose, and is the cause of our dyslexic symptom, but also have more severe communication issues that require life long support, and especially in the education system where we learn to understand ther nature of ou disability, its limiting affects and how we are best able to use alternative compensating abilities to work around our disabilities. Just because the medical profesionals in your area are not adequately trained to identify this disabilities does not mean they do not exist. So Beeblebrox, your reason for reverting my last edit to the article is a complete fiction. dolfrog ( talk) 20:01, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


The bigger problem is this: In narrowing disability to learning disability, Dolfrog is excluding non-learning medical disabilities from the list. So suddenly the sentence says, in effect, that dyslexia is a disability that (1) is found in a medical record and (2) affects education, but paralysis, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, speech disorders, mental illness, etc. are somehow not disabilities that (1) are found in a medical record and (2) affect education.
Plain old "disability" includes both learning disabilities and non-learning disabilities. We need to include everything in this sentence that (1) are found in a medical record and (2) affect education, not just the subset of learning disabilities. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:01, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Excellent point. Steven Hawking certainly doesn't have a learning disability despite his severe physical disability. Beeblebrox ( talk) 16:36, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
The problem here is that the basic terminology has not yet been defined properly from reliable international sources. In British English disability is more normally used to refer to physical disabilities. Learning disability is encountered more in educational jargon, and most writers to distinguish between physical disabilities and learning difficulties. You also have to remember that the UK health system is very different from the US system. We don't have to pay to see a doctor. I suspect the US is unique in providing all these health services within the school system. In the UK problems can be picked up by health visitors. Often it is the parents who recognise that their child has a problem and seeks medical advice. We desperately need editors from different countries to offer a different perspective on this article. It would also help if WhatamIdoing could assume good faith and recognise that editors who live in the UK understand their own education system and its terminology better than she does. She also needs to stop claiming ownership of this article. Dahliarose ( talk) 17:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that we need to define any terminology at all to figure out what this sentence should say. There's no "US vs UK" dispute here. The section is about how you figure out which students need services. It says that there are some kids whose need for SEN services is obvious from their medical records, like kids who are blind. The next paragraph says that there are some kids whose need for SEN services is not obvious from their medical records, like kids with learning difficulties. Where exactly is your supposed lack of a worldwide perspective here? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
It is to do with differences in healthcare systems. Babies and toddlers in the UK get developmental check-ups from health visitors and general practitioners all free on the NHS. I think Dolfrog is suggesting that problems like dyslexia can in theory be detected at an early age before the child starts school. Such conditions would be noted on the medical record. From what I understand you're saying that in the US special needs are only diagnosed after the children have actually started school. Whether or not this level of detail is required for an article of this nature is another matter. You also seem to be suggesting that dyslexia is not a medical condition. Dolfrog's references suggest otherwise. Dahliarose ( talk) 23:09, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Every year or so Dolfrog and/or Dhaliarose attempt to create a tempest in a teapot over the "U.S. specifc" language in this article and a "lack of wordwide definition." Previous edits show that whatamIdoing backs up her claims with research, up to date and peer reviewed data. See her point above regarding the other editors complete misunderstanding of what a dyslexia diagnosis entails. That being said, as an editor when I read a statement by Dhalia rose that claims: [whatamidoing] needs to recognise that editors who live in the UK understand their own education system and its terminology better than she does I have to laugh. Because the premise of that statement is insane. If wikipedia were to adopt that approach then we'd just assume that people from Australia--regardless of their education, background, etc.--must be more knowledgeable than anyone else who lives outside of the country in regards to Ayers Rock. Even distinguished geologists from North Dakota who write papers on the rock and research it, they don't stack up to the guy from Perth. See, because he is from Australia. By default he knows more than you do about his country and everything in it. So there. Yeah, that kind of statement reeks of someone who has an axe to grind, and it seems that, unlike whatamidoing and other editors who actually contribute to this article, they have an agenda. And then, there's Dolfrog's :But may be this is not part of the marketing of education in the US political system, which would prefer such disabilities did not exist. Really? What "political system exactly?" and how is that relevant to your original "concern" about this article? So there's not doubt these editors have some kind of agenda, but that doesn't matter to me as what is done to the article. And they haven't done much--if anything--to improve it. Just squawking about points they don't have the research to back up. Seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing, using generalities and avoiding the points others make. That's not what good editing is, and has no place on wikipedia. If you have some issue with special education, either services, concept or approach, either because you or someone you knew was, as you see, wronged, then please go elsewhere to voice your concerns. Because your just wasting time. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:51, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Dahlia, a diagnosis of a learning disability isn't generally "obvious from the medical records" anywhere in the world. Babies and toddlers get well-child visits in the US, too, and they're free or nearly free for most children, but the mechanism of payment doesn't change anything. You don't diagnose dyslexia in babies and toddlers. It's not a difference in healthcare systems; it's a fact of life. Babies aren't supposed to be reading; therefore, they cannot be diagnosed with a difficulty in learning how to read. Learning disabilities, by definition, require that the person be performing worse than expected for the person's age and IQ. No baby in the world can be said to perform worse than expected on a reading test. You might say that a baby is "at risk for" dyslexia if the baby has an associated physical condition like agenesis of the corpus callosum, but the baby can't actually have dyslexia until he is old enough to read.

But that's really all irrelevant: Dolfrog re-wrote the sentence to exclude children with dozens of types of very obvious, purely physical disabilities, like paralysis or flipper baby syndrome. Do you support excluding all of those children?

Alternatively, do you think that it makes sense to say "sometimes it is easy to figure out that a child needs special services, because his medical record says that he has dyslexia, but other times, it is not at all obvious from medical records that the child has special educational needs, such as when the child has dyslexia"? Isn't that self-contradictory? Doesn't it make more sense to say "sometimes it's obvious" and name conditions that are actually obvious on a medical exam, not conditions that would require unusual, specialized testing? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:11, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Jim, I previously tried to suggest useful global sources to improve this article which you dismissed out of hand at which point I decided I was wasting my time. Are you still trying to claim that respected international organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, etc. are "random" and "not useful"? Do you still think it's preferable to write an article about special education worldwide based on information in American textbooks? I have no agenda other than trying to ensure that this article is properly sourced and reflects special education around the world and not just in America. We should not have to get into long debates as happened before trying to convince US editors that words such as resource room have different meanings in different countries, just as it's obvious that football means something different in both countries. I've got rather a lot of non-Wikipedia things to do at the moment and see no point in continuing this discussion or working on this article until we can get some involvement from other neutral editors. Dahliarose ( talk) 12:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, The problem with this whole section is really the lack of sources. Dahliarose ( talk) 13:39, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I don't lack the sources. What I lack is your willingness to consider any source, no matter its provenance, author, or publisher, as being anything other than "an American source" if it happens to tell the truth, which is that the UK kids with special educational needs who receive 100% of their instruction in a "special unit" at a regular/mainstream school are being treated differently than the UK kids with special educational needs who spend 100% of their day in a regular/normal/typical classroom in a regular/mainstream school. I have provided many sources, including many official reports by UK education agencies, and you seem to dismiss them all as "just more American sources" if they don't agree with your personal beliefs and use exactly the terminology that you are familiar with.
So I've given up for now: until you are willing to deal with facts rather than superficial labels, there's no point in me providing you with long strings of sources. I've done that repeatedly in the past, and the only result is to have you insult their authors as being "just American". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that you have a preconceived idea of what you think special education is based on your knowledge of the American system and you seem to think that your system is the same everywhere else in the world. When you use non-US sources you are not using them correctly because you have failed to understand that words have different meanings in American English and British English, even simple words such as 'disabled'. Consequently the sources you are using do not back up what you are trying to say. I don't know how much time has been spent arguing about the methods of provision section. If sources existed to support your view of the world then there would have been no argument. If you have the sources you claim why not use them? I am not insulting authors for being American. However, authors, whether British, American or any other nationality, who write about the education system in their own country cannot be expected to be experts on special education worldwide. That's why the article needs to be based on sources that have done comparative studies of systems in multiple countries to get a proper international perspective. Every time I've suggested using such sources the discussion gets diverted. Jim Steele even went so far as to dismiss those sources as random and not useful. With such attitudes there seems little point in working on this article unless other more neutral editors can become involved. Dahliarose ( talk) 10:11, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
whatamidoing, you are wasting your time. It appears Dhalia doesn't listen to what she is saying (to answer your question). edits and diffs substantiate this. What lack of sources (a bit of a blanket statement in itself)? Oh, the ones only from America. Sure. Here we go again....We're bickering with a misguided woman who has an agenda, and is not privvy to research in special education, either in or out of America. Also, again: That being said, as an editor when I read a statement by Dhalia rose that claims: [whatamidoing] needs to recognise that editors who live in the UK understand their own education system and its terminology better than she does I have to laugh. Because the premise of that statement is insane. If wikipedia were to adopt that approach then we'd just assume that people from Australia--regardless of their education, background, etc.--must be more knowledgeable than anyone else who lives outside of the country in regards to Ayers Rock. Even distinguished geologists from North Dakota who write papers on the rock and research it, they don't stack up to the guy from Perth. See, because he is from Australia. By default he knows more than you do about his country and everything in it. So there. Yeah, that kind of statement reeks of someone who has an axe to grind, and it seems that, unlike whatamidoing and other editors who actually contribute to this article, they have an agenda Note, Dhalia does not answer your questions. Any of them! She is arguing for the sake of arguing. For someone who has "non wikipedia things to do" she finds ample time to bicker and never add good research to this article!Jimsteele9999 (talk) 13:05, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Just for clarification developmental dyslexia, has three cognitive subtypes, auditory, visual, and attentional. which means that an auditory processing disorder, a visual processing disorder, an attention deficit / disorder or any combination of three, can be the medical/ clinical cuase of the dyslexic symptom. Dyslexia is not a condition, but a share symptom of one or more medical/ clinical conditions and as such a diagnosis of dyslexia is a screening process which should lead to further clinical investigation to identify and diagnose the underlying medical cause. If there is a failure to carry out these further investigations in some countries then that is the irresponsibility and possible ignorance on behalf of those responsible for taking care of childrens needs and welfare while in the education system. These underlying medical conditions that cause the dyslexic symptom have far more serious problems than just the dyslexic symptom and to ignore them is pure negligence by the education in any country. And more nonsense from Jimsteele9999 geographic phenomena are not the same as man made systems. Education systems are the inventions of the humans who create them and each countries education system varies according to the political party currently running the country, and as such is subject to change after each Government election. Unlike Ayers Rock which is the same regardless of the passage of governments of Australia. So yes those who live in the UK have know more about the UK education system than editors from the USA who have never lived in the UK long enough to gain any understanding of the UK education system. It is both Jimsteele9999 and whatamidoing who do not listen to others and seem to want ownership of this article to suite their own inflexible agenda, what ever that may be. dolfrog ( talk) 19:41, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

You don't even know the definition of your own disability. No wonder you have an axe to grind. Moreover when you say "So yes those who live in the UK have know more about the UK education system than editors from the USA who have never lived in the UK long enough to gain any understanding of the UK education system." It is apparent who has "geographical bias". Really, saying just living somewhere makes you, by default, an expert on the education syster (or, by default more knowledgeable than someone who doesn't) demonstrates all sort of bias on your parts...it's sad, really. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:56, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Dolfrog, you just agreed with me, You said that dyslexia is a symptom of a medical condition, not an actual medical condition. Therefore dyslexia is not something that will be obvious in a young child's medical records. Paralysis is a type of disability that is obvious in a child's medical records, everywhere in the world. Learning disabilities are not obvious in medical records. That's why they are so frequently overlooked, anf why children do poorly in school for years before anyone figures out what's going on.
Learning disabilities are good examples of special needs that can be subtle and non-obvious. They are not good examples of special needs that are plainly obvious. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:28, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, Dolfrog and Dhalia both contradict themselves regularly while complaining about semantics in this article. Still, we are waiting for Dhalia to answer the question based on her statements:
"we have no such a thing as 'regular classrooms' and 'special classrooms'."

"We do have a tiny number of schools with special units or resources."

Well, which is it??? Wait, perhaps classroom means something different in the U.K. Maybe a classroom means a tree. Show me some reliable sources that back up any claim you make, about resource room or otherwise and I'll listen. In the meantime, we await your answer. Because I hope you can reason away those statements as they just show how how actually do not know much about services in the U.K. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing and Jimsteele9999 represent the cultural disability biggotary which seems to be part of US Society against those who share my disability, which causes my dyslexic symptom. And would help explain the disability discrimination from other Wikipedia editors who share your attitudes towards my disability, and choose not to provide support and understanding those who share my disability require, and this includes editors who are part of the Wiki medicine project. The difference in cultural attitudes towards my disability are are described in the Learning disability article. The US "Disproportionality" towards disability which from my perspective helps to explain the biggoted attitude towards my disability on here and elsewhere, and how you fail to understand my editing support needs. So this is just the US trying to impose their different culture and moral values on others, and failing to even trying to understand the cultures of others, and more importantly the disabilities and differences of others. dolfrog ( talk) 05:16, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing "Therefore dyslexia is not something that will be obvious in a young child's medical records." For someone who claims to have a high IQ your ignorance astounds me, These are disabilities are termed Invisible Disabilities, like mine which I have had since birth, but in my case was not diagnosed until my late 40s, and for medical reasons not until after 8 years of age for my children. This is just more of your apparent cultural disability discrimination as described above. dolfrog ( talk) 05:26, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

So tell me, dolfrog: When your children started school, if the teacher had read and understood every single word in the medical records from their entire lives, would their dyslexia have been obvious?
Or would you say that a person who read their entire medical record before they began school would have found their dyslexia to be completely unnoticed, unmentioned, undescribed, and non-obvious?
Remember, I'm asking about what actually happened, not what you wish would have happened, if only the medical system were perfect. In the real world, with your own children, did the medical records say something like "this child has dyslexia", or did they say nothing at all that would make that condition obvious to anyone reading the medical records? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
The first problem is that formal education starts before the age of maturation 7-8 years of age, so it is not possible for many cognitive disabilities to be clinically diagnosed. Second international research has demonstrated the genetic links of developmental dyslexia, and that it impossible to identify potential dyslexics from as young as 6 months old for those of familial risk of dyslexia. The USA probably due to the marketing needs of its dyslexia industry has chosen to ignore this. Dyslexia is a man made problem a social construct, and language dependent. There are two types of dyslexia, developmental dyslexia, and Alexia (acquired dyslexia) Developmental dyslexia has a genetic origin, and Alexia results from brain injury, substance abuse, stroke, or progressive illness. Developmental Dyslexia has three cognitive subtypes auditory, visual and attentional. Which means that an auditory processing disorder, a visual processing disorder, an attentional disorder or any combination of the these deficits can cause the dyslexic symptom. This requires a multi discipline (multi professional) approach to child care from birth to teenage years.
And using existing non invasive clinical tests it is possible to identify potential dyslexia children preschool. If government agencies, teaching professionals, and medical professionals are willing to work in the best interests of children rather than their own specific interests.
Our family are the pioneers of APD in the UK so my eldest son was one of the first children to be diagnosed as having APD whe nhe was 10 years of age which was too late for his development, and his teachers only blamed him for having a disability. Our second son was ignored by his school, and we had long running dispute which ended with the School head leaving. Our third son now has a clinical diagnosis of APD from which his school have to work which includes his dyslexic issues and lack of cognitive ability to use phonics. So the UK schools have discriminated against our sons clinically diagnosed disability until the last three years of our third sons educational career. Which has been a pure corruption professional ethics from the UK teaching profession.
Why are you so stuck with the word "obvious". clincal diagnosis are not obvious to non clinicians, and some genetic developmental issues are not "obvious" at 5 yeas of age when children start school. Teachers should be aware of these potential disabilities as part of their basic training, and part of their child care responsibilities for the time they are responsible for the care of the children attending their schools. It is called social responsibility for others in your care. dolfrog ( talk) 19:15, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm "stuck with the word 'obvious'" because we're trying to point out that it's not always easy to figure out who has special educational needs. That's the whole point of these paragraphs:
Sometimes, it's obvious that a child has special educational needs, because blindness and deafness and paralysis and other disabilities like that are obvious to anyone who glances at the kid or the kid's medical records. Other times, it's not obvious that a child has special educational needs, because the child's disability is something like dyslexia, and you can't tell that a child starting school has dyslexia just by glancing at the kid or the kid's medical records. We want our readers to learn in this section that a student can have special educational needs even if an ignorant teacher is saying things like "he doesn't look disabled" or "his medical record doesn't say he's disabled".
Learning disabilities are good examples of special educational needs that are not obvious but still require help. That's why they are called invisible disabilities, right? They are not obvious because you can't see them or figure out that a person has them easily.
Other disabilities, like blindness and deafness and paralysis, are good examples of special educational needs that are obvious. That's why we are naming them as examples of the easy-to-spot kind.
I agree that teachers should be aware of these disabilities, but we should not say that learning disabilities are obvious, when they aren't. We should be telling teachers that they must pay attention and look below the surface to find learning disabilities, because they're missing students who need help. It's easy to figure out which kids are blind in your classroom (or even before the child starts school, from the medical records). It's hard to figure out which kids have learning disabilities. We should therefore not tell teachers that it's really easy to figure out which kids have learning disabilities. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:57, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Jimsteele9999 unless you currently live in the UK how would you know the terminology we use in the UK, You seem to think that just because we share the same language that every word has the same meaning in our different cultures, and that our culture mirrors your own. You are wrong, and beginning to sound like a sockpuppet, by refusing to understand the differences of others in preference to your limited knowledge of the world outside of the USA. dolfrog ( talk) 05:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Dolfrog, my edit histoy of the article and whatamidoing show a multicultural perspective. You should take the time to check them out. Likewise, we've never argued that other countires shoudl not be inlcluded (we both agree with this) Out edits go way back--we're talking years back here. Please stop using your disability as an excuse. It is shameful and gives other people with disabilities a bad name. Also, note whatamidoing, who said: "What I lack is your willingness to consider any source, no matter its provenance, author, or publisher, as being anything other than "an American source" if it happens to tell the truth, which is that the UK kids with special educational needs who receive 100% of their instruction in a "special unit" at a regular/mainstream school are being treated differently than the UK kids with special educational needs who spend 100% of their day in a regular/normal/typical classroom in a regular/mainstream school. I have provided many sources, including many official reports by UK education agencies, and you seem to dismiss them all as "just more American sources" if they don't agree with your personal beliefs and use exactly the terminology that you are familiar with." She pretty much states what has happened. Adding one link to the article on disabilities in China is pawltry when compared with what we've done to help this article. You complain more than you edit, and take the easy way out, blaming others. No wonder you have an axe to grind. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 17:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
UK Governments publish a great number of documents to promote some policy flavour of the month, which in reality are merely the pipedreams of the authors. So you can quote any number of these document proposals, because that is all they are, but they do not reflect what happens in real life. So if you could come to the UK to identify these "special units" you keep on referring to I am sure there would be many parents in the UK of children who have Special Educational Needs willing to find them and have access to these facilities which you claim are there. You need to find UK sources which are not the dreams of politicians, their advisors, and spin doctors; but reflect the day to day reality for children who have speecial educational needs and parents of children with special educational needs. The so called national reviews you use tend to be ignored by local government who do not want ot pay for the expensive programs suggested in the reports you refer to, and most of these reports are delivered near the end of a term of an elected government, and are tend to be ignored by the newly elected government after the reports publication. So ytou do need to understand the UK education system, the UK political system, and how the politics of smoke and mirrors to win elections and stay in power effects how our children are educated. So you need to listen and learn from those who live in the UK, and stop believing the political hype. dolfrog ( talk) 19:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Jimsteele9999 "You complain more than you edit, and take the easy way out, blaming others. No wonder you have an axe to grind." You are demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the nature of my communication disability. Due to my word recall problems, and poor sequencing abilties, coping editing for me is not a practical option. However I am able to carry out background information research. And I have to research papers to do the talking or communicating for me. And yes living with this communication disability is very stressful and tiring especially when others do not want to understand the nature of my life long disability and the life long support needs i require. Copyright and other issues prevent me from editing as I would need to use the words of others who better able to chose the words to describe what I understand. So if you find providing support for others who have a disability difficult then i feel sorry for you. I am not bl;asming my disability but recognising the limitations it imposes on me, while at the same time recognising the alternative communication options open to me. Unforetunately if you do not understand the limitations you can not begin to understand the communication alternatives. So the question is do you understand the nature of my communication disability which according to the UK Medical Research Council I share with 10% of the population. dolfrog ( talk) 19:52, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I counted six excuses right there and more below. You are full of them and still haven't followed the WP:SOFIXIT suggestion. You're comments about politicians and educators suggest someone who does have an ae to grind, probably blame them for your condition or circumstances and thus takes issue with them. Fine if you want to blame others, it seems you have lots of practice on that just by what you have posted here, ignoring what others have said, but keep it out of the article. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The level of discourse here is sinking fast. I would again suggest those who have issues with the article that they wish to have rectified pursue an WP:RFC or other WP:DR. Insulting one another is not going to get us anywhere. This situation is unlikely to resolve itself with the currently involved parties. What we need is fresh input from previously uninvolved users so that a consensus may be reached. Beeblebrox ( talk) 15:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
I liked your compromise edit to the article, I could see where you were coming from. Your are correct this article does need some new blood to sort out this mess. My stress levels and blood pressure rise just thinking about this article. I really do have better thing to do, but I can not stand bye a let the situation in the UK be miss represented by others who have no experience of how the UK education system operates. And as you may have gathered to task of copy editing is beyond my communication disability. So I can find the research sources but I can not do the actual editing on any large scale. I have other issue in the real world mostly related to my families shared disability to persue this any further, so hopefully you can find a new team of editors to correct the mess in this article. dolfrog ( talk) 20:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Planning

If we need to have an RFC, then I think it would be best to present both sides, rather than having one side give all the information. So here's the basic question:

In the article section titled Identifying students with special needs, it currently says,

"Some children are easily identified as candidates for special needs from their medical history. They may have been diagnosed with a genetic condition that is associated with mental retardation, may have various forms of brain damage, may have a developmental disorder, may have visual or hearing disabilities, or other disabilities.

Among students whose identification is less obvious, such as students with learning difficulties, two primary methods have been used for identifying them: the discrepancy model and the response to intervention model. The discrepancy model depends on the teacher noticing that the students' achievements are noticeably below what is expected. The response to intervention model advocates earlier intervention."

One editor changed the word disabilities to learning disabilities (underlined in the text above for your convenience). This change has been disputed. Should this change be made?

After this, I think we should use this format so that respondents can see both sides of the question immediately.

No, we should not make this change Yes, we should make this change
We should not make this change because:
  • The first paragraph is about medical records showing disabilities in children that will affect their education. All forms of disabilities, including paralysis, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, speech disorders, mental illness, etc., should be included in this statement, not just the narrow category of learning disabilities.
  • Unlike the above examples of paralysis, etc., learning disabilities like dyslexia are normally not discovered by reading a child's medical records. They are normally discovered by looking at the child's school performance (and sometimes, but not always, involving medical professionals later).
  • It's self-contradictory to state in paragraph #1 that learning disabilities "are easily identified as candidates for special needs from their medical history" and then to state in paragraph #2 that identification of students with learning difficulties is "less obvious".
We should make this change because...
  • We like excluding children with other disabilities?
  • We think that a review of medical records is a primary way for schools to identify learning disabilities in young children, despite no one here having ever heard of this happening?
  • We believe that the practice of medicine is radically different between countries, so that doctors in the UK can diagnose actual dyslexia (not just a potential risk for it) in babies and toddlers, so dyslexia always turns up in a young child's medical records, despite no one having ever heard of this happening?
  • We need someone who actually supports this change to remove these placeholders and add in their real reasons. NB that to get the formatting right, the asterisk has to start on a new line, not immediately after the pipe ("|") used for table formatting.

So that's the format I suggest, and if anyone actually supports making this particular change, then please remove the joke/placeholder items and add in some real reasons. Also, anyone who has other reasons not to narrow the description to just learning disabilities, feel free to add to that side.

If no one actually wants to step up and put their name to some reasons why the first paragraph should be narrowed to exclude all these other disabilities, then I'm going to assume that the dispute is over and that there really is no reason, even in the UK, to make this change or to tag it as having a problem with an insufficiently UK focus.

If we can get some reasons for making this change, then we'll wait until you're happy with your half of the argument, and then start the RFC. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Good idea but it seems you have miss understood my contributions to date, which is quite a common occurrance due to my communication disability.
First there are issues which can be clinically diagnosed from birth or during the pre-school years, and such information may be accessed via a childs medical recorders. There are also many who may also have these same issues and are not diagnosed until thye are in school, as there is no universal assessment say for example there is not autism assessment for all at say age 3 or 4 years old in any national system. So all of these issues can be an ongoing review of each individual child. The assessment of the potential familial dyslexic risk is based on Finnish research and used mainly in Scandinavia in the UK we have a similar problem wit ha dyslexia industry set on marketing a specific remedial program and ignoring international research. So it would appear that both the UK and USA need to catch up with international research regarding the understanding of dyslexia.
The international research has determined the three cognitive subtypes of dyslexia, auditory, visual, and attentional. this will require multi-discipline assessments including medical professionals and educational professionals. The medical professionals to diagnose the clinical conditions which can cause the dyslexic symptom, and for them to work wit the educational professionals to help provide the best teaching programs to that best suite each childs learning needs, based on their clinically diagnosed deficits/ disabilities, and the alternative compensating skills and abilities they are able to use to work around their disabilities. This will vary on a case by case basis.
So looking at 5 year olds medical records is not a practical guide for most developmental learning disabilities. These will require ongoing assessment as many a dyslexics are not identified until they are adults mainly due to the poor quality of child care, assessment and awareness of these issues.
So basically both of WhatamIdoing proposals are flawed, and unrealistic. idnentification of issues which require the services of Spoecial education for children should be an ongoing process throughout a childs educatiuonal career, as these types of disability are difficult to identify and diagnose clinically and in the classroom. And these issues are life long disabilities although some are able to develop some useful coping strategies to work around their deficits on a good day, there are also too many bad days when the the coping strategies do not work for one reason or another, and the disability becomes more appearent. (obvious) Those who havfe a high IQ are also very good at developing coping strategies which can conceal or hide the true nature of their disabilities, for many years. Until the day when running the coping strategies becomes too tiring and too stressful.
All of which can be very confusing and not representable by the options currently suggested. dolfrog ( talk) 22:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
My only proposal at this point is, that if you or anyone else still wants to change the broad word "disabilities" to the narrow, limited, and exclusionary word "learning disabilities", that we have an RFC and see what the rest of the community thinks is the better choice.
All I need from you right now is
  1. to say whether or not you still want the narrower term in that particular sentence in the article, and
  2. if (and only if) the answer to question #1 is yes, to delete the fake/placeholder reasons and put some decent ones in there. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm against changing it to learning disabilities. It would alter the intent of the article and lose accuracy. Also, I'm against the "lack of global focus" or whatever tag was up. What part of "national approaches" lacks global perspective? Dolfrog and Dhalia obviously are out of their depth and cannot be expected to answer this. Whatamidoing, we've worked on this article for years, adding many sources from authors out of the US and UK. Not that it matters, but as I said we've been through this before. Any RFC will see this, but it will come to it if they insist on the tag which makes no sense. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I really question whether you two havce any real understanding of the issues involved. You nare the ones completely out of your depth. You appear to lack any technical knowledge of the complex issues being discussed and you seem to only be able to discuss issues in a n over simplified manner. You may have worked on the article for some time which you seem to think gives you ownership, and you have very little idea of life outside of the USA, and lack a global view of the world and international research. It is time for a new team of editors who are adequately qualified in both international educational and medical research with regard to neurology and how we learn, and the various cognitive disabilities which can prevent us from learning. This is particularly importnat wit the new DSM5 coming out in May 2013 with considerable complex changes regarding many of the current definition of the related disabilities. You two have never disclosed your experience with children, and children who have learning disabilities. So you probably have little or no experience of living with a disability that requires special education support. dolfrog ( talk) 23:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
As I said, all we can determine is what is posted by an editor. You have no idea about my background, because I haven't said so. I obviously have profciency in this topic, as the previous edits show. They're all sourced with verifiable references. I took the time to do this and have never reverted your edits. You, on the other hand, have frequently brought up your disability as an excuse, It is why you cannot understand what we say. Or--when it is convienient--you can understand what we say about your "issues" on the article and we're the ones that don't get it. Wow. Note: as I said, you give people with disabilities a bad name. You should be ashamed of yourself. The DSM5 has nothing to do with what you were talking about, the lack of supposed international perspectives. By the way, the sources you listed are mostly out of date and show again how out of your depth you are. Go feel sorry for yourself. It is what you do best. Leave this article to people who know about the research and actually make edits, create things, instead of drama, which is what you apparently create so well. You didn't even respond to the work (see, what editors who know about this topic do) whatamidoing did. Why not? Because it is easier to dismiss. As you did with beeblebrox and anyone else you see as "biased." It's laughable! I'm actually smiling! Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 01:49, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
no it is you who should be ashamed of yourself, you have seem to have little or no understanding of the issues involved and completely out of your depth, not even with your toe in the water. You do not seem to want to understand the issues that require special education provision, nor do yopu want to listen to others from outside of the USA, which is pure ignorance. I am not giving people with a disability a bad name I am standing up for their rights against the ignorance of others who do not want to understand our needs. So you are the one who is givingh the non disabled a bad name by refusing to listen to others who have to live with a a wide range of differences and disabilities in different countries whioh have different cultures and different communication systems. You have only demonstrated that you can provide a limited USA perspective and have no idea of the internation issues in the various different cultures. Time for you to give up and for others more qualified in education and medical research to take over. And my communication disability does prevent me from being able to express what I understand, and you need to demonstrate that you understand the nature of my disability before you even begin to make any more edits to this article. Currently you are discriminating against my disability, due to your ignorance of my disability. dolfrog ( talk) 08:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
This conversation is drifting out of control, both of you ( dolfrog and Jimsteele9999) need to maintain a civil tone with each other. Regardless of your beliefs on this subject, you are on wikipedia and are bound by the founding principles of the project, of which civility is one. Hughesdarren ( talk) 08:44, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Please can editors on this article assume good faith. Dolfrog was making a legitimate attempt to edit the article. Rather than misrepresent what he was trying to say, please try and understand the purpose of the edit. The text as it currently stands is somewhat ambiguous. If children have a disability which has been medically diagnosed it will be recorded in their medical history, regardless of what type of disability it is. I presume what the text should say is that many disabilities are evident without having to check the medical record. Of course for many children in the world they would not even have access to a doctor to record their disability in a medical record in the first place. The implication of the sentence as it currently stands is that certain types of disabilities are diagnosed in the medical record but do not qualify for special needs education. I think all that Dolfrog is trying to say is that invisible disabilities can be diagnosed medically and this needs to be recognised in the article, hence the desire to link to the learning disabilities Wiki page. The text simply needs to be amended to reflect this meaning. I agree that changing "other disabilities" to "other learning disabilities" doesn't work because it suggests that all the preceding conditions are learning disabilities rather than physical disabilities. Dahliarose ( talk) 09:38, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
  • So is there no one left who actually wants to support the proposed change? If so, this dispute is checkY Resolved and the global tag should be removed, because we have agreed that there is no country on Earth for which this particular change makes any sense.
  • Dahlia, I don't understand something you said here. I assume you are talking about the sentence that says Some children are easily identified as candidates for special needs from their medical history. How does that sentence have the implication "that certain types of disabilities are diagnosed in the medical record but do not qualify for special needs education"? It seems to me to imply the opposite, that every medical disability qualifies the child for special services. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I can no long participate on this talk page or article as the high stress levels are damaging my health. I can only hope that some responsible editors begin to read the medical and educational research, and investigate the varying cultures and communication and learning systems that exisit around the world. dolfrog ( talk) 08:57, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

dyslexia

OK so if you want to know about dyslexia you can begin by reading the research papers in the following PubMed research paper collections. Happy reading. dolfrog ( talk) 00:25, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Dyslexia and related topic collections

Dyslexia collections by year of publication

Dolfrog, Thank you for the extensive list of research papers. Could I suggest that to make it easier for everyone you compile a list of the important review papers on the subject that have been published in the last few years. Review papers will summarise the current state of the research. 09:13, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

UNSECO sources

This is a list of potentially useful sources from the UNESCO website, which Dahlia had recommended as a source of non-American information:

The history interests me more than the other issues, but I've only glanced over most of them, and perhaps others will find other points of interest. I expect that a few people will be disappointed to discover that they use basically the same language as this article, e.g., the word segregation to describe separating children on the basis of their disability status, or that they split up the settings for provision into even more than the four broad categories that we're using (different sources here use a different number, but none of them have the three groups that the UK editors are used to thinking in), but the best thing might be for everyone to read them. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

This article is like the Leaning Tower of Pisa

In Japan and many other countries in the world, people need to take entrance exams in order to enter high school. Disabled people chose not to take entrance exams, so they can't be excluded from school if they were never enrolled in school. And how can they be segregated in separate classrooms or in a special school exclusively for students with special needs if they chose not to attend school? If disabled people choose not to attend school, how can they be included in regular classrooms for all, or at least more than half, of the school day? If disabled people chose not to attend school, how can they be mainstreamed in regular classrooms during specific time periods based on their skills? Does anyone besides the United States care about inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation and exclusion? UndyingNova ( talk) 21:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

If you know about what education children with disabilities get in Japan, please add it to the article. With sources,in Japanese if there are none in English. Itsmejudith ( talk) 21:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

ESE (teaching) redirects to a subsection of this page

The ESE (teaching) page redirects to the Special education#Special schools section instead of the Special education page itself. I thought this was unusual but wanted to ask here if anybody knew why this made sense before changing it. makeswell ( talk) 11:23, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

To judge whether the link makes sense we would first need to know what "ESE" means, unfortunately there is no explanation here or on the redirect page. Roger ( talk) 07:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
The meaning of the words are explained at the ESE disambiguation page as "Exceptional Student Education". The term "exceptional" usually infers a gifted student, not one with a learning disability or whatever, so I have taken the redirect to RFD, see here if you wish to comment on it. Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm I forgot to look for a disambig! I'll take a look at the RFD, there really should be a link to Exceptional Student Education at the Disambiguation page. Thanks Roger ( talk) 06:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Suggested addition to section 3.1.1 History of special schools

Please note historical terminology: persons with mental retardation are now known as persons with a developmental disability in North America, and an intellectual disability in other parts of the world.

The world’s first and most famous attempt at teaching a 'retarded child' — the “Wild Boy of Aveyron,” who was captured at the end of the 18th century and brought to the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Paris — was by Jean Marc Gaspard Itard in France. [1] After five years of instruction “he proved that the ‘feeble mind’ could learn.” [2] Itard’s work was continued by Édouard Séguin, who used his “physiological method” paired with sensory and muscle training to teach reading, writing, and speech. [3] Thereafter, he established “a class for ten to twelve ‘idiots’” in Rue Faubourg Saint Martin near Paris. [4] Moving to the United States in 1850, Séguin was credited with defining and shaping the education of the persons with mental retardation in North America. Despite his efforts, however, “the treatment of the mentally retarded continued to receive staunch opposition from the public, who believed that the teaching and training of the retarded was rather uneventful.” [5] It was not until 1848 that the United States made provisions for the treatment of the ‘mentally retarded’ in specially constructed hospitals. [6] The state of Massachusetts, through legislative efforts, founded the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center. Its primary purpose emphasized the idea of “habilitation of the retarded and stressed the teaching of useful skills”. [7] By the end of the 19th century, 15 states had similar facilities in operation. An analogous institution in Alberta, Canada the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives in Red Deer, was not built until 1923.

" References

References

  1. ^ Verstraete, 2005, p. 120
  2. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 4
  3. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 4
  4. ^ Verstraete, 2005, p. 129
  5. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 5
  6. ^ Amary, 1980
  7. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 5
  • Amary, I.B., The rights of the mentally retarded-developmentally disabled to treatment and education, Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1980.
  • Verstraete, P., The taming of disability: Phrenology and bio-power on the road to the destruction of otherness in France (1800-60), History of Education, 2005, 34(2): 119–134.

Asordi ( talk) 18:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

No, they aren't. Developmental disability encompasses many, many more conditions than just MR. I'm sure that many people with cerebral palsy, who have a developmental disability but do not have MR, find this equation of DD with MR to be quite offensive.
Mental retardation is the official term for that condition (IQ below 70, plus difficulty with everyday skills) used by the World Health Organization in their current classification system. Terms like ID are preferred by many parents, but the scientific and medical world is still using MR. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
This seems very US-centric. "Mental retardation" is not used by professionals in the UK. Itsmejudith ( talk) 12:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
It is used in the UK, because that's the term used by the World Health Organization in their ICD-10 coding system and also in the DSM-IV. Teachers probably don't (although I hope that they aren't so ignorant or sloppy as to use "developmental disability" as their euphemism; most teachers and parents use intellectually disabled these days), but the psychiatrists and psychologists who actually diagnose that condition definitely do use mental retardation as the authoritative term, in the UK and everywhere else in the world. WhatamIdoing ( talk)
Can you find one recent UK source using it? Itsmejudith ( talk) 07:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Easily: PMID  22696388, from the University of Liverpool last year. PMID  23462627, from the University of Plymouth last month. It's not just scholarly journals, either: see ISBN  978-3805592802 out of Oxford in 2010. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
UK government source saying it has been replaced in UK. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/specialist-guides/medical-conditions/a-z-of-medical-conditions/learning-disability/. Itsmejudith ( talk) 07:09, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Sure, and there are some US laws that say "intellectual disability" is the official replacement for MR in the US government's educational and social services publications. That doesn't mean that the term isn't actually being used, and your source acknowledges that even the UK is still using it "in disease classifications (ICD 10 and DSM IV)".
"Learning disability" means something like dyslexia for much of the world outside the UK, even in other languages (e.g., Lernbehinderung in German and Dificultades del aprendizaje in Spanish, both of which translate to "learning disabilities"), so I don't think that it would be a good idea to adopt the UK's terminology for this item. Perhaps after the DSM-V comes out, we can change it to their new term, which is Intellectual developmental disorder. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
This webpage provides a good explanation of the different usages in different countries. While the term "mental retardation" might be used by medical professionals in the UK (the two articles cited specifically relate to Down's syndrome) is there any evidence that this term is ever used in an educational context? Dahliarose ( talk) 22:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

PL94-142

I think this article could benefit from the addition of information on PL94-142 as this is where it all began. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffin18 ( talkcontribs) 02:02, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

A Touch More Detail

This article does a great job of giving a general over view of special education, I think that it should provide more details and facts on the types of learning disabilities that are included in special education. Should also describe the steps that a teacher or parent must take in order for a child to receive special education services. Should also include various laws associated with special education, and what public schools in the united states are required to do for students with disabilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Disarnot ( talkcontribs) 00:55, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Including Special Needs Education for Teachers

According to a study that revolved around educating teachers on how to institute a curriculum for special needs, an increase in confidence and ability in teachers resulted in a positive change in 4 in 6 students. It also showed an increase in teacher confidence which could result in positive benefits, however there remains the need to develop a fully functional and acceptable curriculum. References: • Gianoumis, Stamatios; Seiverling, Laura; Sturming, Peter. "The Effect of Behavioral Skills Training on Correct Teacher Implementation of Natural Language Paradigm Teaching Skills and Child Behavior." Behavioral Intervention 27 (2) (2012). 57-74. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 18 April, 2016. http://search.ebscohost.com.libdb.ppcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=74281005&site=ehost-live • Mustafa Arif, Muhammad; Niazy, Ayesha; Hassan, Bilal; Ahmed, Farah. "Awareness of Autism in Primary School Teachers." Autism Research and Treatment (2013). 1-5. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 April, 2016. http://search.ebscohost.com.libdb.ppcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=95270033&site=ehost-live — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:281:C501:A700:5133:811F:F919:4867 ( talk) 03:17, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The actual meaning of Special Education:

204.69.3.20 ( talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)The actual meaning of special education-classes or instruction designed for students with special education needs. An early proponent of education for blind was Valentin Huay, who opened a school in 1784; his efforts persued those of Louis Braille. 204.69.3.20 ( talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I think your insight is interesting however there are many dimensions to Special Education. You mentioned the one, vague dimension of the actual disabilities of the students themselves. This is important but that is broad. Special Education consists of students with Down Syndrome, Autism, Aspergers, Selectively Mute children and so on. Cokinosk ( talk) 16:34, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Source Issues

Source 11 is a dead link. It needs to be updated. Tarynbaird ( talk) 16:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

One suggestion that I would make towards this article is to maybe add more information on personal experience with Special education students and what they have dealt with while working with these kind of students. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.92.42.82 ( talk) 18:52, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

One suggestion I would make towards this article is to add more on personal experience with students who do have special needs and what they went through while working with these students! Kiley mackowiak ( talk) 19:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Kiley mackowiak, I'm afraid that would not be acceptable. Wikipedia never accepts original research and generally deprecates the use of primary sources. IMHO what would help this article really improve is more detail and a wider variety of countries in the "National approaches" section, while simultaneously reducing the over-reliance on American sources in the rest of the article, which creates the impression that American rules, practices and standards are some kind of global norm - which is patently not the case. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 19:35, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

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Suggestion

After reviewing the National Approaches section of the article, I think it would be helpful to include a section for South America so the section is inclusive of all the different continents in the world. Adding this section can allow readers to better understand the differences in Special Education across the entire world and makes the section more well-rounded. Chadowelf ( talk) 07:33, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Chadowelf the "Latin America" section currently contains only a brief description about Colombia, so it can certainly do with expansion. If you have suitable sources please do so. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 13:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

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"Issues" section and the general balance of the article

The rather long and detailed "Issues" section currently has a subsection titled "Global issues". Given that this article is supposed to be a broad global overview, it logically follows that the article should actually not be covering topics that are not global in scope. Thus the content of the Issues section before the "Global issues" subsection should not be there.

As it is the entire article outside of the "National approaches" section already suffers from a first world western bias could be reduced by moving content to various country-specific articles. US budgetary politics, for example, is not particularly relevant here. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 20:34, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

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ADHD classification

I have a feeling someone will move ADHD back to "emotional and behavioural disorders" so I want to ask that you please remove the example altogether instead if you must. Many find the classification of ADHD as a behavioural disorder is stigmatising as it characterises it primarily by its effects on other people, downplaying the internal symptoms and effects on individuals. Furthermore, research in the last 10-20 years has identified that people with ADHD often have no obvious behavioural or emotional symptoms at all. It is first and foremost a cognitive impairment on executive functions. A child with ADHD could be perfectly happy and well behaved, and still fall behind at school due to their ADHD. Please, if you feel ADHD doesn't belong in its current place, I only ask that you don't reclassify it as an emotional or behavioural disorder. Thank you. Djelibey ( talk) 10:50, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I moved it to neurodevelopmental disorders. I agree that it's not an emotional or behavioral disorder but it's also not a learning disorder. Queenofconfusion ( talk) 18:02, 19 May 2022 (UTC)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Archive 1 Archive 3 Archive 4 Archive 5

Learning Disabilities

WhatamIdoing wrote "Undid revision 504425995 by Dolfrog (talk) Wrong sort of disability: learning disabilities aren't usually evident from medical history alone" Well please could you inform the rest of the world what other issues cause learning disabilities other than issues which have a medical / clinical origin. dolfrog ( talk) 01:31, 2 August 2012 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood the reason why your edit was reverted. You added the phrase to a sentence specifically discussing medical diagnosis. Learning disabilities (such as dyslexia) are not normally diagnosed in a medical context but are rather diagnosed in an educational context. Roger ( talk) 08:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Dyslexia has underlying medical or clinical causes that require further investigation. Dyslexia is merely a screening process for various medical/ cognitive disabilities. There is no misunderstanding on my part, more a lack of knowledge about these issues from others. dolfrog ( talk) 09:09, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Sure, I can give an example: paralysis of the hand is a disability that (1) is obvious from medical records and (2) affects the student's ability to use a pencil in school.
Dyslexia, by contrast, is not usually evident in the medical records. Dyslexia is typically discovered because of problems in school, not because of diseases, injuries, or medical conditions that appeared before attending school. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 20:13, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
Potential Dyslexic can be identified preschool, the research is there, the problem would appear to the the in adequate training of both medical and educational professionals in the USA, which from what you have said would appear to be at least a decade behind the international research. You seem to be claiming some form of ownership of this article, and that you personally are the font of all information. I would suggest you have a look at the research paper collection on my user page and catch up. And dolfrog ( talk) 01:09, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
The reason the underlying cognitive disabilities are not identified pre-school, which have been present since birth, is that the school environment may provide the first chance to observe genetic disability and suggest the requird assessment and diagnosis. Many of these issues are not defined as a disabiliyt until the age og maturation 6-8 years of age when children stop growing out of natural developmental issues. But may be this is not part of the marketing of education in the US political system, which would prefer such disabilities did not exist. dolfrog ( talk) 01:20, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't understand how it could not be self-evident that some types of learning disabilities are not detected by medical doctors. There is no reason a medical doctor would be testing a child's ability to learn as part of a medical exam as it is not a medical issue. "Learning disabilities" is actually a very broad topic with a whole spectrum of different issues. Some students have extreme problems such as severe autism or brain injuries which would almost certainly be obvious to a medical doctor, while for others it may be as simple as them having lousy parents who never bothered to teach them how to read. We need to be cognizant of the fact that we are talking about a many-faceted issue here. That is exactly why there are so many different approaches to dealing with learning disabilities. That schools in some places apparently practice a "one size fits all" approach does not mean that everyone does it that way. I think this issue may have come to a point where WP:DR in some form is needed to help us move forward. Possibly an WP:RFC in order to gather a broader spectrum of participants in the discussion. Beeblebrox ( talk) 15:49, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Teaching children to read is the responsibility of the education system not parents, and having lousy parents is not a cause of learning disability. The first problem in many countries is that formal education begin before the age of developmental maturation 7-8 years of age. Which means that purely developmental issues can be miss understood as a learning disability, which those who do not have a cognitive disability will grow out of. Yes there is a wide spectrum of medical issues from the issues that can cause mild dyslexia to severe autism etc. And many of these issues are still subject to rigorous international research. The medical conditons which can cause issues such as dyslexia may be beyond the qualifications of a local medical professional and may require more specialist assessment and diagnosis, there are many uniformed medical professionals. My family all have one of those clinical disabilities which can be hard to identify and diagnose, and is the cause of our dyslexic symptom, but also have more severe communication issues that require life long support, and especially in the education system where we learn to understand ther nature of ou disability, its limiting affects and how we are best able to use alternative compensating abilities to work around our disabilities. Just because the medical profesionals in your area are not adequately trained to identify this disabilities does not mean they do not exist. So Beeblebrox, your reason for reverting my last edit to the article is a complete fiction. dolfrog ( talk) 20:01, 4 August 2012 (UTC)


The bigger problem is this: In narrowing disability to learning disability, Dolfrog is excluding non-learning medical disabilities from the list. So suddenly the sentence says, in effect, that dyslexia is a disability that (1) is found in a medical record and (2) affects education, but paralysis, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, speech disorders, mental illness, etc. are somehow not disabilities that (1) are found in a medical record and (2) affect education.
Plain old "disability" includes both learning disabilities and non-learning disabilities. We need to include everything in this sentence that (1) are found in a medical record and (2) affect education, not just the subset of learning disabilities. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 16:01, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Excellent point. Steven Hawking certainly doesn't have a learning disability despite his severe physical disability. Beeblebrox ( talk) 16:36, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
The problem here is that the basic terminology has not yet been defined properly from reliable international sources. In British English disability is more normally used to refer to physical disabilities. Learning disability is encountered more in educational jargon, and most writers to distinguish between physical disabilities and learning difficulties. You also have to remember that the UK health system is very different from the US system. We don't have to pay to see a doctor. I suspect the US is unique in providing all these health services within the school system. In the UK problems can be picked up by health visitors. Often it is the parents who recognise that their child has a problem and seeks medical advice. We desperately need editors from different countries to offer a different perspective on this article. It would also help if WhatamIdoing could assume good faith and recognise that editors who live in the UK understand their own education system and its terminology better than she does. She also needs to stop claiming ownership of this article. Dahliarose ( talk) 17:46, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
I don't think that we need to define any terminology at all to figure out what this sentence should say. There's no "US vs UK" dispute here. The section is about how you figure out which students need services. It says that there are some kids whose need for SEN services is obvious from their medical records, like kids who are blind. The next paragraph says that there are some kids whose need for SEN services is not obvious from their medical records, like kids with learning difficulties. Where exactly is your supposed lack of a worldwide perspective here? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:40, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
It is to do with differences in healthcare systems. Babies and toddlers in the UK get developmental check-ups from health visitors and general practitioners all free on the NHS. I think Dolfrog is suggesting that problems like dyslexia can in theory be detected at an early age before the child starts school. Such conditions would be noted on the medical record. From what I understand you're saying that in the US special needs are only diagnosed after the children have actually started school. Whether or not this level of detail is required for an article of this nature is another matter. You also seem to be suggesting that dyslexia is not a medical condition. Dolfrog's references suggest otherwise. Dahliarose ( talk) 23:09, 3 August 2012 (UTC)
Every year or so Dolfrog and/or Dhaliarose attempt to create a tempest in a teapot over the "U.S. specifc" language in this article and a "lack of wordwide definition." Previous edits show that whatamIdoing backs up her claims with research, up to date and peer reviewed data. See her point above regarding the other editors complete misunderstanding of what a dyslexia diagnosis entails. That being said, as an editor when I read a statement by Dhalia rose that claims: [whatamidoing] needs to recognise that editors who live in the UK understand their own education system and its terminology better than she does I have to laugh. Because the premise of that statement is insane. If wikipedia were to adopt that approach then we'd just assume that people from Australia--regardless of their education, background, etc.--must be more knowledgeable than anyone else who lives outside of the country in regards to Ayers Rock. Even distinguished geologists from North Dakota who write papers on the rock and research it, they don't stack up to the guy from Perth. See, because he is from Australia. By default he knows more than you do about his country and everything in it. So there. Yeah, that kind of statement reeks of someone who has an axe to grind, and it seems that, unlike whatamidoing and other editors who actually contribute to this article, they have an agenda. And then, there's Dolfrog's :But may be this is not part of the marketing of education in the US political system, which would prefer such disabilities did not exist. Really? What "political system exactly?" and how is that relevant to your original "concern" about this article? So there's not doubt these editors have some kind of agenda, but that doesn't matter to me as what is done to the article. And they haven't done much--if anything--to improve it. Just squawking about points they don't have the research to back up. Seem to be arguing for the sake of arguing, using generalities and avoiding the points others make. That's not what good editing is, and has no place on wikipedia. If you have some issue with special education, either services, concept or approach, either because you or someone you knew was, as you see, wronged, then please go elsewhere to voice your concerns. Because your just wasting time. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:51, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Dahlia, a diagnosis of a learning disability isn't generally "obvious from the medical records" anywhere in the world. Babies and toddlers get well-child visits in the US, too, and they're free or nearly free for most children, but the mechanism of payment doesn't change anything. You don't diagnose dyslexia in babies and toddlers. It's not a difference in healthcare systems; it's a fact of life. Babies aren't supposed to be reading; therefore, they cannot be diagnosed with a difficulty in learning how to read. Learning disabilities, by definition, require that the person be performing worse than expected for the person's age and IQ. No baby in the world can be said to perform worse than expected on a reading test. You might say that a baby is "at risk for" dyslexia if the baby has an associated physical condition like agenesis of the corpus callosum, but the baby can't actually have dyslexia until he is old enough to read.

But that's really all irrelevant: Dolfrog re-wrote the sentence to exclude children with dozens of types of very obvious, purely physical disabilities, like paralysis or flipper baby syndrome. Do you support excluding all of those children?

Alternatively, do you think that it makes sense to say "sometimes it is easy to figure out that a child needs special services, because his medical record says that he has dyslexia, but other times, it is not at all obvious from medical records that the child has special educational needs, such as when the child has dyslexia"? Isn't that self-contradictory? Doesn't it make more sense to say "sometimes it's obvious" and name conditions that are actually obvious on a medical exam, not conditions that would require unusual, specialized testing? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:11, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Jim, I previously tried to suggest useful global sources to improve this article which you dismissed out of hand at which point I decided I was wasting my time. Are you still trying to claim that respected international organisations such as UNESCO, UNICEF, etc. are "random" and "not useful"? Do you still think it's preferable to write an article about special education worldwide based on information in American textbooks? I have no agenda other than trying to ensure that this article is properly sourced and reflects special education around the world and not just in America. We should not have to get into long debates as happened before trying to convince US editors that words such as resource room have different meanings in different countries, just as it's obvious that football means something different in both countries. I've got rather a lot of non-Wikipedia things to do at the moment and see no point in continuing this discussion or working on this article until we can get some involvement from other neutral editors. Dahliarose ( talk) 12:16, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
WhatamIdoing, The problem with this whole section is really the lack of sources. Dahliarose ( talk) 13:39, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Actually, I don't lack the sources. What I lack is your willingness to consider any source, no matter its provenance, author, or publisher, as being anything other than "an American source" if it happens to tell the truth, which is that the UK kids with special educational needs who receive 100% of their instruction in a "special unit" at a regular/mainstream school are being treated differently than the UK kids with special educational needs who spend 100% of their day in a regular/normal/typical classroom in a regular/mainstream school. I have provided many sources, including many official reports by UK education agencies, and you seem to dismiss them all as "just more American sources" if they don't agree with your personal beliefs and use exactly the terminology that you are familiar with.
So I've given up for now: until you are willing to deal with facts rather than superficial labels, there's no point in me providing you with long strings of sources. I've done that repeatedly in the past, and the only result is to have you insult their authors as being "just American". WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:39, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
The problem is that you have a preconceived idea of what you think special education is based on your knowledge of the American system and you seem to think that your system is the same everywhere else in the world. When you use non-US sources you are not using them correctly because you have failed to understand that words have different meanings in American English and British English, even simple words such as 'disabled'. Consequently the sources you are using do not back up what you are trying to say. I don't know how much time has been spent arguing about the methods of provision section. If sources existed to support your view of the world then there would have been no argument. If you have the sources you claim why not use them? I am not insulting authors for being American. However, authors, whether British, American or any other nationality, who write about the education system in their own country cannot be expected to be experts on special education worldwide. That's why the article needs to be based on sources that have done comparative studies of systems in multiple countries to get a proper international perspective. Every time I've suggested using such sources the discussion gets diverted. Jim Steele even went so far as to dismiss those sources as random and not useful. With such attitudes there seems little point in working on this article unless other more neutral editors can become involved. Dahliarose ( talk) 10:11, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
whatamidoing, you are wasting your time. It appears Dhalia doesn't listen to what she is saying (to answer your question). edits and diffs substantiate this. What lack of sources (a bit of a blanket statement in itself)? Oh, the ones only from America. Sure. Here we go again....We're bickering with a misguided woman who has an agenda, and is not privvy to research in special education, either in or out of America. Also, again: That being said, as an editor when I read a statement by Dhalia rose that claims: [whatamidoing] needs to recognise that editors who live in the UK understand their own education system and its terminology better than she does I have to laugh. Because the premise of that statement is insane. If wikipedia were to adopt that approach then we'd just assume that people from Australia--regardless of their education, background, etc.--must be more knowledgeable than anyone else who lives outside of the country in regards to Ayers Rock. Even distinguished geologists from North Dakota who write papers on the rock and research it, they don't stack up to the guy from Perth. See, because he is from Australia. By default he knows more than you do about his country and everything in it. So there. Yeah, that kind of statement reeks of someone who has an axe to grind, and it seems that, unlike whatamidoing and other editors who actually contribute to this article, they have an agenda Note, Dhalia does not answer your questions. Any of them! She is arguing for the sake of arguing. For someone who has "non wikipedia things to do" she finds ample time to bicker and never add good research to this article!Jimsteele9999 (talk) 13:05, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

Just for clarification developmental dyslexia, has three cognitive subtypes, auditory, visual, and attentional. which means that an auditory processing disorder, a visual processing disorder, an attention deficit / disorder or any combination of three, can be the medical/ clinical cuase of the dyslexic symptom. Dyslexia is not a condition, but a share symptom of one or more medical/ clinical conditions and as such a diagnosis of dyslexia is a screening process which should lead to further clinical investigation to identify and diagnose the underlying medical cause. If there is a failure to carry out these further investigations in some countries then that is the irresponsibility and possible ignorance on behalf of those responsible for taking care of childrens needs and welfare while in the education system. These underlying medical conditions that cause the dyslexic symptom have far more serious problems than just the dyslexic symptom and to ignore them is pure negligence by the education in any country. And more nonsense from Jimsteele9999 geographic phenomena are not the same as man made systems. Education systems are the inventions of the humans who create them and each countries education system varies according to the political party currently running the country, and as such is subject to change after each Government election. Unlike Ayers Rock which is the same regardless of the passage of governments of Australia. So yes those who live in the UK have know more about the UK education system than editors from the USA who have never lived in the UK long enough to gain any understanding of the UK education system. It is both Jimsteele9999 and whatamidoing who do not listen to others and seem to want ownership of this article to suite their own inflexible agenda, what ever that may be. dolfrog ( talk) 19:41, 4 August 2012 (UTC)

You don't even know the definition of your own disability. No wonder you have an axe to grind. Moreover when you say "So yes those who live in the UK have know more about the UK education system than editors from the USA who have never lived in the UK long enough to gain any understanding of the UK education system." It is apparent who has "geographical bias". Really, saying just living somewhere makes you, by default, an expert on the education syster (or, by default more knowledgeable than someone who doesn't) demonstrates all sort of bias on your parts...it's sad, really. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:56, 4 August 2012 (UTC)
Dolfrog, you just agreed with me, You said that dyslexia is a symptom of a medical condition, not an actual medical condition. Therefore dyslexia is not something that will be obvious in a young child's medical records. Paralysis is a type of disability that is obvious in a child's medical records, everywhere in the world. Learning disabilities are not obvious in medical records. That's why they are so frequently overlooked, anf why children do poorly in school for years before anyone figures out what's going on.
Learning disabilities are good examples of special needs that can be subtle and non-obvious. They are not good examples of special needs that are plainly obvious. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 01:28, 5 August 2012 (UTC)
Yes, Dolfrog and Dhalia both contradict themselves regularly while complaining about semantics in this article. Still, we are waiting for Dhalia to answer the question based on her statements:
"we have no such a thing as 'regular classrooms' and 'special classrooms'."

"We do have a tiny number of schools with special units or resources."

Well, which is it??? Wait, perhaps classroom means something different in the U.K. Maybe a classroom means a tree. Show me some reliable sources that back up any claim you make, about resource room or otherwise and I'll listen. In the meantime, we await your answer. Because I hope you can reason away those statements as they just show how how actually do not know much about services in the U.K. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:52, 5 August 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing and Jimsteele9999 represent the cultural disability biggotary which seems to be part of US Society against those who share my disability, which causes my dyslexic symptom. And would help explain the disability discrimination from other Wikipedia editors who share your attitudes towards my disability, and choose not to provide support and understanding those who share my disability require, and this includes editors who are part of the Wiki medicine project. The difference in cultural attitudes towards my disability are are described in the Learning disability article. The US "Disproportionality" towards disability which from my perspective helps to explain the biggoted attitude towards my disability on here and elsewhere, and how you fail to understand my editing support needs. So this is just the US trying to impose their different culture and moral values on others, and failing to even trying to understand the cultures of others, and more importantly the disabilities and differences of others. dolfrog ( talk) 05:16, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing "Therefore dyslexia is not something that will be obvious in a young child's medical records." For someone who claims to have a high IQ your ignorance astounds me, These are disabilities are termed Invisible Disabilities, like mine which I have had since birth, but in my case was not diagnosed until my late 40s, and for medical reasons not until after 8 years of age for my children. This is just more of your apparent cultural disability discrimination as described above. dolfrog ( talk) 05:26, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

So tell me, dolfrog: When your children started school, if the teacher had read and understood every single word in the medical records from their entire lives, would their dyslexia have been obvious?
Or would you say that a person who read their entire medical record before they began school would have found their dyslexia to be completely unnoticed, unmentioned, undescribed, and non-obvious?
Remember, I'm asking about what actually happened, not what you wish would have happened, if only the medical system were perfect. In the real world, with your own children, did the medical records say something like "this child has dyslexia", or did they say nothing at all that would make that condition obvious to anyone reading the medical records? WhatamIdoing ( talk) 18:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
The first problem is that formal education starts before the age of maturation 7-8 years of age, so it is not possible for many cognitive disabilities to be clinically diagnosed. Second international research has demonstrated the genetic links of developmental dyslexia, and that it impossible to identify potential dyslexics from as young as 6 months old for those of familial risk of dyslexia. The USA probably due to the marketing needs of its dyslexia industry has chosen to ignore this. Dyslexia is a man made problem a social construct, and language dependent. There are two types of dyslexia, developmental dyslexia, and Alexia (acquired dyslexia) Developmental dyslexia has a genetic origin, and Alexia results from brain injury, substance abuse, stroke, or progressive illness. Developmental Dyslexia has three cognitive subtypes auditory, visual and attentional. Which means that an auditory processing disorder, a visual processing disorder, an attentional disorder or any combination of the these deficits can cause the dyslexic symptom. This requires a multi discipline (multi professional) approach to child care from birth to teenage years.
And using existing non invasive clinical tests it is possible to identify potential dyslexia children preschool. If government agencies, teaching professionals, and medical professionals are willing to work in the best interests of children rather than their own specific interests.
Our family are the pioneers of APD in the UK so my eldest son was one of the first children to be diagnosed as having APD whe nhe was 10 years of age which was too late for his development, and his teachers only blamed him for having a disability. Our second son was ignored by his school, and we had long running dispute which ended with the School head leaving. Our third son now has a clinical diagnosis of APD from which his school have to work which includes his dyslexic issues and lack of cognitive ability to use phonics. So the UK schools have discriminated against our sons clinically diagnosed disability until the last three years of our third sons educational career. Which has been a pure corruption professional ethics from the UK teaching profession.
Why are you so stuck with the word "obvious". clincal diagnosis are not obvious to non clinicians, and some genetic developmental issues are not "obvious" at 5 yeas of age when children start school. Teachers should be aware of these potential disabilities as part of their basic training, and part of their child care responsibilities for the time they are responsible for the care of the children attending their schools. It is called social responsibility for others in your care. dolfrog ( talk) 19:15, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm "stuck with the word 'obvious'" because we're trying to point out that it's not always easy to figure out who has special educational needs. That's the whole point of these paragraphs:
Sometimes, it's obvious that a child has special educational needs, because blindness and deafness and paralysis and other disabilities like that are obvious to anyone who glances at the kid or the kid's medical records. Other times, it's not obvious that a child has special educational needs, because the child's disability is something like dyslexia, and you can't tell that a child starting school has dyslexia just by glancing at the kid or the kid's medical records. We want our readers to learn in this section that a student can have special educational needs even if an ignorant teacher is saying things like "he doesn't look disabled" or "his medical record doesn't say he's disabled".
Learning disabilities are good examples of special educational needs that are not obvious but still require help. That's why they are called invisible disabilities, right? They are not obvious because you can't see them or figure out that a person has them easily.
Other disabilities, like blindness and deafness and paralysis, are good examples of special educational needs that are obvious. That's why we are naming them as examples of the easy-to-spot kind.
I agree that teachers should be aware of these disabilities, but we should not say that learning disabilities are obvious, when they aren't. We should be telling teachers that they must pay attention and look below the surface to find learning disabilities, because they're missing students who need help. It's easy to figure out which kids are blind in your classroom (or even before the child starts school, from the medical records). It's hard to figure out which kids have learning disabilities. We should therefore not tell teachers that it's really easy to figure out which kids have learning disabilities. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 19:57, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Jimsteele9999 unless you currently live in the UK how would you know the terminology we use in the UK, You seem to think that just because we share the same language that every word has the same meaning in our different cultures, and that our culture mirrors your own. You are wrong, and beginning to sound like a sockpuppet, by refusing to understand the differences of others in preference to your limited knowledge of the world outside of the USA. dolfrog ( talk) 05:34, 6 August 2012 (UTC)

Dolfrog, my edit histoy of the article and whatamidoing show a multicultural perspective. You should take the time to check them out. Likewise, we've never argued that other countires shoudl not be inlcluded (we both agree with this) Out edits go way back--we're talking years back here. Please stop using your disability as an excuse. It is shameful and gives other people with disabilities a bad name. Also, note whatamidoing, who said: "What I lack is your willingness to consider any source, no matter its provenance, author, or publisher, as being anything other than "an American source" if it happens to tell the truth, which is that the UK kids with special educational needs who receive 100% of their instruction in a "special unit" at a regular/mainstream school are being treated differently than the UK kids with special educational needs who spend 100% of their day in a regular/normal/typical classroom in a regular/mainstream school. I have provided many sources, including many official reports by UK education agencies, and you seem to dismiss them all as "just more American sources" if they don't agree with your personal beliefs and use exactly the terminology that you are familiar with." She pretty much states what has happened. Adding one link to the article on disabilities in China is pawltry when compared with what we've done to help this article. You complain more than you edit, and take the easy way out, blaming others. No wonder you have an axe to grind. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 17:28, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
UK Governments publish a great number of documents to promote some policy flavour of the month, which in reality are merely the pipedreams of the authors. So you can quote any number of these document proposals, because that is all they are, but they do not reflect what happens in real life. So if you could come to the UK to identify these "special units" you keep on referring to I am sure there would be many parents in the UK of children who have Special Educational Needs willing to find them and have access to these facilities which you claim are there. You need to find UK sources which are not the dreams of politicians, their advisors, and spin doctors; but reflect the day to day reality for children who have speecial educational needs and parents of children with special educational needs. The so called national reviews you use tend to be ignored by local government who do not want ot pay for the expensive programs suggested in the reports you refer to, and most of these reports are delivered near the end of a term of an elected government, and are tend to be ignored by the newly elected government after the reports publication. So ytou do need to understand the UK education system, the UK political system, and how the politics of smoke and mirrors to win elections and stay in power effects how our children are educated. So you need to listen and learn from those who live in the UK, and stop believing the political hype. dolfrog ( talk) 19:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
Jimsteele9999 "You complain more than you edit, and take the easy way out, blaming others. No wonder you have an axe to grind." You are demonstrating a complete lack of understanding of the nature of my communication disability. Due to my word recall problems, and poor sequencing abilties, coping editing for me is not a practical option. However I am able to carry out background information research. And I have to research papers to do the talking or communicating for me. And yes living with this communication disability is very stressful and tiring especially when others do not want to understand the nature of my life long disability and the life long support needs i require. Copyright and other issues prevent me from editing as I would need to use the words of others who better able to chose the words to describe what I understand. So if you find providing support for others who have a disability difficult then i feel sorry for you. I am not bl;asming my disability but recognising the limitations it imposes on me, while at the same time recognising the alternative communication options open to me. Unforetunately if you do not understand the limitations you can not begin to understand the communication alternatives. So the question is do you understand the nature of my communication disability which according to the UK Medical Research Council I share with 10% of the population. dolfrog ( talk) 19:52, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I counted six excuses right there and more below. You are full of them and still haven't followed the WP:SOFIXIT suggestion. You're comments about politicians and educators suggest someone who does have an ae to grind, probably blame them for your condition or circumstances and thus takes issue with them. Fine if you want to blame others, it seems you have lots of practice on that just by what you have posted here, ignoring what others have said, but keep it out of the article. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:35, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
  • The level of discourse here is sinking fast. I would again suggest those who have issues with the article that they wish to have rectified pursue an WP:RFC or other WP:DR. Insulting one another is not going to get us anywhere. This situation is unlikely to resolve itself with the currently involved parties. What we need is fresh input from previously uninvolved users so that a consensus may be reached. Beeblebrox ( talk) 15:19, 6 August 2012 (UTC)
I liked your compromise edit to the article, I could see where you were coming from. Your are correct this article does need some new blood to sort out this mess. My stress levels and blood pressure rise just thinking about this article. I really do have better thing to do, but I can not stand bye a let the situation in the UK be miss represented by others who have no experience of how the UK education system operates. And as you may have gathered to task of copy editing is beyond my communication disability. So I can find the research sources but I can not do the actual editing on any large scale. I have other issue in the real world mostly related to my families shared disability to persue this any further, so hopefully you can find a new team of editors to correct the mess in this article. dolfrog ( talk) 20:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Planning

If we need to have an RFC, then I think it would be best to present both sides, rather than having one side give all the information. So here's the basic question:

In the article section titled Identifying students with special needs, it currently says,

"Some children are easily identified as candidates for special needs from their medical history. They may have been diagnosed with a genetic condition that is associated with mental retardation, may have various forms of brain damage, may have a developmental disorder, may have visual or hearing disabilities, or other disabilities.

Among students whose identification is less obvious, such as students with learning difficulties, two primary methods have been used for identifying them: the discrepancy model and the response to intervention model. The discrepancy model depends on the teacher noticing that the students' achievements are noticeably below what is expected. The response to intervention model advocates earlier intervention."

One editor changed the word disabilities to learning disabilities (underlined in the text above for your convenience). This change has been disputed. Should this change be made?

After this, I think we should use this format so that respondents can see both sides of the question immediately.

No, we should not make this change Yes, we should make this change
We should not make this change because:
  • The first paragraph is about medical records showing disabilities in children that will affect their education. All forms of disabilities, including paralysis, epilepsy, cerebral palsy, speech disorders, mental illness, etc., should be included in this statement, not just the narrow category of learning disabilities.
  • Unlike the above examples of paralysis, etc., learning disabilities like dyslexia are normally not discovered by reading a child's medical records. They are normally discovered by looking at the child's school performance (and sometimes, but not always, involving medical professionals later).
  • It's self-contradictory to state in paragraph #1 that learning disabilities "are easily identified as candidates for special needs from their medical history" and then to state in paragraph #2 that identification of students with learning difficulties is "less obvious".
We should make this change because...
  • We like excluding children with other disabilities?
  • We think that a review of medical records is a primary way for schools to identify learning disabilities in young children, despite no one here having ever heard of this happening?
  • We believe that the practice of medicine is radically different between countries, so that doctors in the UK can diagnose actual dyslexia (not just a potential risk for it) in babies and toddlers, so dyslexia always turns up in a young child's medical records, despite no one having ever heard of this happening?
  • We need someone who actually supports this change to remove these placeholders and add in their real reasons. NB that to get the formatting right, the asterisk has to start on a new line, not immediately after the pipe ("|") used for table formatting.

So that's the format I suggest, and if anyone actually supports making this particular change, then please remove the joke/placeholder items and add in some real reasons. Also, anyone who has other reasons not to narrow the description to just learning disabilities, feel free to add to that side.

If no one actually wants to step up and put their name to some reasons why the first paragraph should be narrowed to exclude all these other disabilities, then I'm going to assume that the dispute is over and that there really is no reason, even in the UK, to make this change or to tag it as having a problem with an insufficiently UK focus.

If we can get some reasons for making this change, then we'll wait until you're happy with your half of the argument, and then start the RFC. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:13, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Good idea but it seems you have miss understood my contributions to date, which is quite a common occurrance due to my communication disability.
First there are issues which can be clinically diagnosed from birth or during the pre-school years, and such information may be accessed via a childs medical recorders. There are also many who may also have these same issues and are not diagnosed until thye are in school, as there is no universal assessment say for example there is not autism assessment for all at say age 3 or 4 years old in any national system. So all of these issues can be an ongoing review of each individual child. The assessment of the potential familial dyslexic risk is based on Finnish research and used mainly in Scandinavia in the UK we have a similar problem wit ha dyslexia industry set on marketing a specific remedial program and ignoring international research. So it would appear that both the UK and USA need to catch up with international research regarding the understanding of dyslexia.
The international research has determined the three cognitive subtypes of dyslexia, auditory, visual, and attentional. this will require multi-discipline assessments including medical professionals and educational professionals. The medical professionals to diagnose the clinical conditions which can cause the dyslexic symptom, and for them to work wit the educational professionals to help provide the best teaching programs to that best suite each childs learning needs, based on their clinically diagnosed deficits/ disabilities, and the alternative compensating skills and abilities they are able to use to work around their disabilities. This will vary on a case by case basis.
So looking at 5 year olds medical records is not a practical guide for most developmental learning disabilities. These will require ongoing assessment as many a dyslexics are not identified until they are adults mainly due to the poor quality of child care, assessment and awareness of these issues.
So basically both of WhatamIdoing proposals are flawed, and unrealistic. idnentification of issues which require the services of Spoecial education for children should be an ongoing process throughout a childs educatiuonal career, as these types of disability are difficult to identify and diagnose clinically and in the classroom. And these issues are life long disabilities although some are able to develop some useful coping strategies to work around their deficits on a good day, there are also too many bad days when the the coping strategies do not work for one reason or another, and the disability becomes more appearent. (obvious) Those who havfe a high IQ are also very good at developing coping strategies which can conceal or hide the true nature of their disabilities, for many years. Until the day when running the coping strategies becomes too tiring and too stressful.
All of which can be very confusing and not representable by the options currently suggested. dolfrog ( talk) 22:02, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
My only proposal at this point is, that if you or anyone else still wants to change the broad word "disabilities" to the narrow, limited, and exclusionary word "learning disabilities", that we have an RFC and see what the rest of the community thinks is the better choice.
All I need from you right now is
  1. to say whether or not you still want the narrower term in that particular sentence in the article, and
  2. if (and only if) the answer to question #1 is yes, to delete the fake/placeholder reasons and put some decent ones in there. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I'm against changing it to learning disabilities. It would alter the intent of the article and lose accuracy. Also, I'm against the "lack of global focus" or whatever tag was up. What part of "national approaches" lacks global perspective? Dolfrog and Dhalia obviously are out of their depth and cannot be expected to answer this. Whatamidoing, we've worked on this article for years, adding many sources from authors out of the US and UK. Not that it matters, but as I said we've been through this before. Any RFC will see this, but it will come to it if they insist on the tag which makes no sense. Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 23:40, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
I really question whether you two havce any real understanding of the issues involved. You nare the ones completely out of your depth. You appear to lack any technical knowledge of the complex issues being discussed and you seem to only be able to discuss issues in a n over simplified manner. You may have worked on the article for some time which you seem to think gives you ownership, and you have very little idea of life outside of the USA, and lack a global view of the world and international research. It is time for a new team of editors who are adequately qualified in both international educational and medical research with regard to neurology and how we learn, and the various cognitive disabilities which can prevent us from learning. This is particularly importnat wit the new DSM5 coming out in May 2013 with considerable complex changes regarding many of the current definition of the related disabilities. You two have never disclosed your experience with children, and children who have learning disabilities. So you probably have little or no experience of living with a disability that requires special education support. dolfrog ( talk) 23:55, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
As I said, all we can determine is what is posted by an editor. You have no idea about my background, because I haven't said so. I obviously have profciency in this topic, as the previous edits show. They're all sourced with verifiable references. I took the time to do this and have never reverted your edits. You, on the other hand, have frequently brought up your disability as an excuse, It is why you cannot understand what we say. Or--when it is convienient--you can understand what we say about your "issues" on the article and we're the ones that don't get it. Wow. Note: as I said, you give people with disabilities a bad name. You should be ashamed of yourself. The DSM5 has nothing to do with what you were talking about, the lack of supposed international perspectives. By the way, the sources you listed are mostly out of date and show again how out of your depth you are. Go feel sorry for yourself. It is what you do best. Leave this article to people who know about the research and actually make edits, create things, instead of drama, which is what you apparently create so well. You didn't even respond to the work (see, what editors who know about this topic do) whatamidoing did. Why not? Because it is easier to dismiss. As you did with beeblebrox and anyone else you see as "biased." It's laughable! I'm actually smiling! Jimsteele9999 ( talk) 01:49, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
no it is you who should be ashamed of yourself, you have seem to have little or no understanding of the issues involved and completely out of your depth, not even with your toe in the water. You do not seem to want to understand the issues that require special education provision, nor do yopu want to listen to others from outside of the USA, which is pure ignorance. I am not giving people with a disability a bad name I am standing up for their rights against the ignorance of others who do not want to understand our needs. So you are the one who is givingh the non disabled a bad name by refusing to listen to others who have to live with a a wide range of differences and disabilities in different countries whioh have different cultures and different communication systems. You have only demonstrated that you can provide a limited USA perspective and have no idea of the internation issues in the various different cultures. Time for you to give up and for others more qualified in education and medical research to take over. And my communication disability does prevent me from being able to express what I understand, and you need to demonstrate that you understand the nature of my disability before you even begin to make any more edits to this article. Currently you are discriminating against my disability, due to your ignorance of my disability. dolfrog ( talk) 08:36, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
This conversation is drifting out of control, both of you ( dolfrog and Jimsteele9999) need to maintain a civil tone with each other. Regardless of your beliefs on this subject, you are on wikipedia and are bound by the founding principles of the project, of which civility is one. Hughesdarren ( talk) 08:44, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
Please can editors on this article assume good faith. Dolfrog was making a legitimate attempt to edit the article. Rather than misrepresent what he was trying to say, please try and understand the purpose of the edit. The text as it currently stands is somewhat ambiguous. If children have a disability which has been medically diagnosed it will be recorded in their medical history, regardless of what type of disability it is. I presume what the text should say is that many disabilities are evident without having to check the medical record. Of course for many children in the world they would not even have access to a doctor to record their disability in a medical record in the first place. The implication of the sentence as it currently stands is that certain types of disabilities are diagnosed in the medical record but do not qualify for special needs education. I think all that Dolfrog is trying to say is that invisible disabilities can be diagnosed medically and this needs to be recognised in the article, hence the desire to link to the learning disabilities Wiki page. The text simply needs to be amended to reflect this meaning. I agree that changing "other disabilities" to "other learning disabilities" doesn't work because it suggests that all the preceding conditions are learning disabilities rather than physical disabilities. Dahliarose ( talk) 09:38, 8 August 2012 (UTC)
  • So is there no one left who actually wants to support the proposed change? If so, this dispute is checkY Resolved and the global tag should be removed, because we have agreed that there is no country on Earth for which this particular change makes any sense.
  • Dahlia, I don't understand something you said here. I assume you are talking about the sentence that says Some children are easily identified as candidates for special needs from their medical history. How does that sentence have the implication "that certain types of disabilities are diagnosed in the medical record but do not qualify for special needs education"? It seems to me to imply the opposite, that every medical disability qualifies the child for special services. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 23:57, 10 August 2012 (UTC)

I can no long participate on this talk page or article as the high stress levels are damaging my health. I can only hope that some responsible editors begin to read the medical and educational research, and investigate the varying cultures and communication and learning systems that exisit around the world. dolfrog ( talk) 08:57, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

dyslexia

OK so if you want to know about dyslexia you can begin by reading the research papers in the following PubMed research paper collections. Happy reading. dolfrog ( talk) 00:25, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Dyslexia and related topic collections

Dyslexia collections by year of publication

Dolfrog, Thank you for the extensive list of research papers. Could I suggest that to make it easier for everyone you compile a list of the important review papers on the subject that have been published in the last few years. Review papers will summarise the current state of the research. 09:13, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

UNSECO sources

This is a list of potentially useful sources from the UNESCO website, which Dahlia had recommended as a source of non-American information:

The history interests me more than the other issues, but I've only glanced over most of them, and perhaps others will find other points of interest. I expect that a few people will be disappointed to discover that they use basically the same language as this article, e.g., the word segregation to describe separating children on the basis of their disability status, or that they split up the settings for provision into even more than the four broad categories that we're using (different sources here use a different number, but none of them have the three groups that the UK editors are used to thinking in), but the best thing might be for everyone to read them. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 21:38, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

This article is like the Leaning Tower of Pisa

In Japan and many other countries in the world, people need to take entrance exams in order to enter high school. Disabled people chose not to take entrance exams, so they can't be excluded from school if they were never enrolled in school. And how can they be segregated in separate classrooms or in a special school exclusively for students with special needs if they chose not to attend school? If disabled people choose not to attend school, how can they be included in regular classrooms for all, or at least more than half, of the school day? If disabled people chose not to attend school, how can they be mainstreamed in regular classrooms during specific time periods based on their skills? Does anyone besides the United States care about inclusion, mainstreaming, segregation and exclusion? UndyingNova ( talk) 21:34, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

If you know about what education children with disabilities get in Japan, please add it to the article. With sources,in Japanese if there are none in English. Itsmejudith ( talk) 21:42, 9 October 2012 (UTC)

ESE (teaching) redirects to a subsection of this page

The ESE (teaching) page redirects to the Special education#Special schools section instead of the Special education page itself. I thought this was unusual but wanted to ask here if anybody knew why this made sense before changing it. makeswell ( talk) 11:23, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

To judge whether the link makes sense we would first need to know what "ESE" means, unfortunately there is no explanation here or on the redirect page. Roger ( talk) 07:36, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
The meaning of the words are explained at the ESE disambiguation page as "Exceptional Student Education". The term "exceptional" usually infers a gifted student, not one with a learning disability or whatever, so I have taken the redirect to RFD, see here if you wish to comment on it. Beeblebrox ( talk) 18:24, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Facepalm Facepalm I forgot to look for a disambig! I'll take a look at the RFD, there really should be a link to Exceptional Student Education at the Disambiguation page. Thanks Roger ( talk) 06:49, 28 March 2013 (UTC)

Suggested addition to section 3.1.1 History of special schools

Please note historical terminology: persons with mental retardation are now known as persons with a developmental disability in North America, and an intellectual disability in other parts of the world.

The world’s first and most famous attempt at teaching a 'retarded child' — the “Wild Boy of Aveyron,” who was captured at the end of the 18th century and brought to the National Institute for the Deaf and Dumb in Paris — was by Jean Marc Gaspard Itard in France. [1] After five years of instruction “he proved that the ‘feeble mind’ could learn.” [2] Itard’s work was continued by Édouard Séguin, who used his “physiological method” paired with sensory and muscle training to teach reading, writing, and speech. [3] Thereafter, he established “a class for ten to twelve ‘idiots’” in Rue Faubourg Saint Martin near Paris. [4] Moving to the United States in 1850, Séguin was credited with defining and shaping the education of the persons with mental retardation in North America. Despite his efforts, however, “the treatment of the mentally retarded continued to receive staunch opposition from the public, who believed that the teaching and training of the retarded was rather uneventful.” [5] It was not until 1848 that the United States made provisions for the treatment of the ‘mentally retarded’ in specially constructed hospitals. [6] The state of Massachusetts, through legislative efforts, founded the Walter E. Fernald Developmental Center. Its primary purpose emphasized the idea of “habilitation of the retarded and stressed the teaching of useful skills”. [7] By the end of the 19th century, 15 states had similar facilities in operation. An analogous institution in Alberta, Canada the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives in Red Deer, was not built until 1923.

" References

References

  1. ^ Verstraete, 2005, p. 120
  2. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 4
  3. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 4
  4. ^ Verstraete, 2005, p. 129
  5. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 5
  6. ^ Amary, 1980
  7. ^ Amary, 1980, p. 5
  • Amary, I.B., The rights of the mentally retarded-developmentally disabled to treatment and education, Springfield: Charles C. Thomas Publisher, 1980.
  • Verstraete, P., The taming of disability: Phrenology and bio-power on the road to the destruction of otherness in France (1800-60), History of Education, 2005, 34(2): 119–134.

Asordi ( talk) 18:58, 15 October 2012 (UTC)

No, they aren't. Developmental disability encompasses many, many more conditions than just MR. I'm sure that many people with cerebral palsy, who have a developmental disability but do not have MR, find this equation of DD with MR to be quite offensive.
Mental retardation is the official term for that condition (IQ below 70, plus difficulty with everyday skills) used by the World Health Organization in their current classification system. Terms like ID are preferred by many parents, but the scientific and medical world is still using MR. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 04:13, 6 November 2012 (UTC)
This seems very US-centric. "Mental retardation" is not used by professionals in the UK. Itsmejudith ( talk) 12:33, 12 March 2013 (UTC)
It is used in the UK, because that's the term used by the World Health Organization in their ICD-10 coding system and also in the DSM-IV. Teachers probably don't (although I hope that they aren't so ignorant or sloppy as to use "developmental disability" as their euphemism; most teachers and parents use intellectually disabled these days), but the psychiatrists and psychologists who actually diagnose that condition definitely do use mental retardation as the authoritative term, in the UK and everywhere else in the world. WhatamIdoing ( talk)
Can you find one recent UK source using it? Itsmejudith ( talk) 07:38, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
Easily: PMID  22696388, from the University of Liverpool last year. PMID  23462627, from the University of Plymouth last month. It's not just scholarly journals, either: see ISBN  978-3805592802 out of Oxford in 2010. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 17:30, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
UK government source saying it has been replaced in UK. http://www.dwp.gov.uk/publications/specialist-guides/medical-conditions/a-z-of-medical-conditions/learning-disability/. Itsmejudith ( talk) 07:09, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Sure, and there are some US laws that say "intellectual disability" is the official replacement for MR in the US government's educational and social services publications. That doesn't mean that the term isn't actually being used, and your source acknowledges that even the UK is still using it "in disease classifications (ICD 10 and DSM IV)".
"Learning disability" means something like dyslexia for much of the world outside the UK, even in other languages (e.g., Lernbehinderung in German and Dificultades del aprendizaje in Spanish, both of which translate to "learning disabilities"), so I don't think that it would be a good idea to adopt the UK's terminology for this item. Perhaps after the DSM-V comes out, we can change it to their new term, which is Intellectual developmental disorder. WhatamIdoing ( talk) 02:42, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
This webpage provides a good explanation of the different usages in different countries. While the term "mental retardation" might be used by medical professionals in the UK (the two articles cited specifically relate to Down's syndrome) is there any evidence that this term is ever used in an educational context? Dahliarose ( talk) 22:49, 4 April 2013 (UTC)

PL94-142

I think this article could benefit from the addition of information on PL94-142 as this is where it all began. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Griffin18 ( talkcontribs) 02:02, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

A Touch More Detail

This article does a great job of giving a general over view of special education, I think that it should provide more details and facts on the types of learning disabilities that are included in special education. Should also describe the steps that a teacher or parent must take in order for a child to receive special education services. Should also include various laws associated with special education, and what public schools in the united states are required to do for students with disabilities. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Disarnot ( talkcontribs) 00:55, 31 March 2016 (UTC)

Including Special Needs Education for Teachers

According to a study that revolved around educating teachers on how to institute a curriculum for special needs, an increase in confidence and ability in teachers resulted in a positive change in 4 in 6 students. It also showed an increase in teacher confidence which could result in positive benefits, however there remains the need to develop a fully functional and acceptable curriculum. References: • Gianoumis, Stamatios; Seiverling, Laura; Sturming, Peter. "The Effect of Behavioral Skills Training on Correct Teacher Implementation of Natural Language Paradigm Teaching Skills and Child Behavior." Behavioral Intervention 27 (2) (2012). 57-74. Psychology and Behavioral Sciences Collection. Web. 18 April, 2016. http://search.ebscohost.com.libdb.ppcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=pbh&AN=74281005&site=ehost-live • Mustafa Arif, Muhammad; Niazy, Ayesha; Hassan, Bilal; Ahmed, Farah. "Awareness of Autism in Primary School Teachers." Autism Research and Treatment (2013). 1-5. Academic Search Complete. Web. 18 April, 2016. http://search.ebscohost.com.libdb.ppcc.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=95270033&site=ehost-live — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:281:C501:A700:5133:811F:F919:4867 ( talk) 03:17, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

The actual meaning of Special Education:

204.69.3.20 ( talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)The actual meaning of special education-classes or instruction designed for students with special education needs. An early proponent of education for blind was Valentin Huay, who opened a school in 1784; his efforts persued those of Louis Braille. 204.69.3.20 ( talk) 21:22, 2 April 2013 (UTC)

I think your insight is interesting however there are many dimensions to Special Education. You mentioned the one, vague dimension of the actual disabilities of the students themselves. This is important but that is broad. Special Education consists of students with Down Syndrome, Autism, Aspergers, Selectively Mute children and so on. Cokinosk ( talk) 16:34, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Source Issues

Source 11 is a dead link. It needs to be updated. Tarynbaird ( talk) 16:11, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

One suggestion that I would make towards this article is to maybe add more information on personal experience with Special education students and what they have dealt with while working with these kind of students. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.92.42.82 ( talk) 18:52, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion

One suggestion I would make towards this article is to add more on personal experience with students who do have special needs and what they went through while working with these students! Kiley mackowiak ( talk) 19:10, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Kiley mackowiak, I'm afraid that would not be acceptable. Wikipedia never accepts original research and generally deprecates the use of primary sources. IMHO what would help this article really improve is more detail and a wider variety of countries in the "National approaches" section, while simultaneously reducing the over-reliance on American sources in the rest of the article, which creates the impression that American rules, practices and standards are some kind of global norm - which is patently not the case. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 19:35, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

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Suggestion

After reviewing the National Approaches section of the article, I think it would be helpful to include a section for South America so the section is inclusive of all the different continents in the world. Adding this section can allow readers to better understand the differences in Special Education across the entire world and makes the section more well-rounded. Chadowelf ( talk) 07:33, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Hi Chadowelf the "Latin America" section currently contains only a brief description about Colombia, so it can certainly do with expansion. If you have suitable sources please do so. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 13:46, 23 August 2018 (UTC)

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"Issues" section and the general balance of the article

The rather long and detailed "Issues" section currently has a subsection titled "Global issues". Given that this article is supposed to be a broad global overview, it logically follows that the article should actually not be covering topics that are not global in scope. Thus the content of the Issues section before the "Global issues" subsection should not be there.

As it is the entire article outside of the "National approaches" section already suffers from a first world western bias could be reduced by moving content to various country-specific articles. US budgetary politics, for example, is not particularly relevant here. Roger (Dodger67) ( talk) 20:34, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

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ADHD classification

I have a feeling someone will move ADHD back to "emotional and behavioural disorders" so I want to ask that you please remove the example altogether instead if you must. Many find the classification of ADHD as a behavioural disorder is stigmatising as it characterises it primarily by its effects on other people, downplaying the internal symptoms and effects on individuals. Furthermore, research in the last 10-20 years has identified that people with ADHD often have no obvious behavioural or emotional symptoms at all. It is first and foremost a cognitive impairment on executive functions. A child with ADHD could be perfectly happy and well behaved, and still fall behind at school due to their ADHD. Please, if you feel ADHD doesn't belong in its current place, I only ask that you don't reclassify it as an emotional or behavioural disorder. Thank you. Djelibey ( talk) 10:50, 6 May 2022 (UTC)

I moved it to neurodevelopmental disorders. I agree that it's not an emotional or behavioral disorder but it's also not a learning disorder. Queenofconfusion ( talk) 18:02, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

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