Special programs developed for the education of children with disabilities.
The training and teaching of children with special needs, those who have mental or physical needs and characteristics that require attention beyond that given to most children, including children with mental retardation or mental disorders, gifted children, children with physical or learning disabilities, and children whose cultural background (such as different language or socioeconomic disadvantage) requires compensatory education. Materials and methods of instruction in special education programs are adapted to the child’s individual needs; for those children designated as handicapped under the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, the school in cooperation with parents makes up individualized education programs (IEPs). Special education teachers, sometimes called visiting, itinerant, or resource teachers, are often employed by school districts or regions to serve several schools, helping to plan long-term and short-term IEPs for such children, working directly with the children and advising the rest of the school staff, as well as the parents. Under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, children with handicaps or disabilities are supposed to be educated in regular classes wherever possible, an approach called mainstreaming, but where that is not possible, special students are grouped in separate classes, either separately by the type of disability (such as learning disabilities or blindness) or all together as children with exceptional needs.