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Special Education, as the name indicates, is all about education of children with special needs. Visually impaired, hearing impaired, physically disabled and mentally challenged children come under this category.
The aim of special education is to minimize their disability and enhance their other abilities in the best way possible. There is a need to make able people with some disabilities (PWDs) spend a normal and independent life. For this purpose, different training centers and workshops are established to facilitate, accommodate and rehabilitate them.
If the child is born, let’s say deaf, is it his/her fault that he/she is not normal like other humans? In fact, it’s the responsibility of the child’s parents, government, and community to minimize his despair by giving him a special education. Remember, special children are not liabilities but assets, they are not for rejection but acceptance just the need is to polish their other abilities in the best way possible.
Getting an education with a disability is another challenge. For visually impaired children, braille is used to educate and train them. Physically handicapped children suffer from muscular dystrophies.
As far as hearing-impaired children are concerned, they are more challenging in nature. The biggest problem to educate these children is communication. How can a normal person communicate in a way that these children could understand? What are they saying and make them understand their own thoughts? This is the major issue due to which most children fail to express their own feelings.
To cope up with this total communication approach is used; using all communication methods i.e sign language, speech, facial expressions, body language and gestures to educate them. Education of mentally challenged children is a really hard task. They have psychological, emotional and behavioral problems. Mostly, they are referred to psychologists or psychiatrists. They are not educable but trainable. How to dress up, take bath, eat, brush? Only these skills are taught.
In brief, special education aims at provision of education to children with special needs. These needs may vary from child to child and culture to culture.
