Course Description
Individuals with special needs, including possible impact, causes, and characteristics of specific needs across life spans and cultural diversity. Topics include legal requirements, ethical implications, education strategies, collaboration between regular and special educators, inclusion, family involvement, and current issues relating to individuals with special needs.
Athena Title
Survey of Special Education
Equivalent Courses
Not open to students with credit in EDSE 2000E
Prerequisite
Permission of department
Semester Course Offered
Offered fall, spring and summer
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The following objectives that provide a structure for this course were reidentified by the Council for Exceptional Children and also Georgia House Bill 671 as critical content knowledge and skills for pre-service teachers. 1. Describe the Issues in definition, prevalence and identification procedures for individuals with exceptional learning needs, including how special education is provided, teachers' roles, legislative highlights; 2. Discuss the principles of normalization, deinstitutionalization, self determination, and explain the key issues at the heart of the inclusion debate; 3. Identify the important concepts about multicultural and bilingual aspects of special education; 4. Identify the effects of a child with a disability on the family, and best ways for families to be involved in treatment and education; 5. Differentiate among models, describe key characteristics, and identify diagnostic criteria for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities; 6. Define learning disabilities, how current trends have changed the way students with LD are identified, and describe the psychological and behavioral characteristics; 7. Discuss the origins of ADHD; how it is identified, assessed, and the educational considerations and interventions for this population; 8. Examine different ways to define and identify students, describe characteristics, compare and contrast environmental and biological causes; provide prevalence figures; and compare different ways to determine the presence of emotional behaviors disabilities; 9. Distinguish between speech and language communication disorders; recognize how communication differences may be related to the culture; explain the typical course of the development of language and characteristics and effects of speech impairments; and identify and evaluate the causes; 10. Distinguish between the definitions of deafness, hearing impairment, hard of hearing, visual impairment and blindness; and describe key characteristics of these children; 11. Differentiate among different curricula in order to evaluate the essentials of facilitating a comprehensive education for students who are blind, visually impaired, deaf or hard of hearing; 12. Describe the definition and characteristics of autism spectrum disorder; the key characteristics of low incidence disabilities (autism, TBI, and Deaf-Blindness); and identify diagnostic criteria for describing characteristics of individuals with low incidence disabilities; 13. Recognize prevalence rates and recent trends in the areas of autism and TBI; 14. Identify different models; describe characteristics and causes; and identify prevalence rates for individuals with physical disabilities; 15. Understand how physical disabilities can be prevented and what we can do as teachers to educate the public; 16. Describe and define key characteristics of the gifted student and compare the characteristics of different assessment tools used to determine the presence of giftedness.
Topical Outline
1) Foundations 2) The IEP Process and RTI 3) Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities 4) Learning Disabilities 5) Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder 6) Emotional or Behavioral Disorder 7) Communication Disorder 8) Hearing and Visual Impairments 9) Low-Incidence Populations 10) Physical Disabilities and Other Health Impairments 11) Gifted Education 12) Autism Spectrum disorders 13) Parents and Families 14) Multicultural and Bilingual Issues
Syllabus