In the United States, children with disabilities are guaranteed by law to have education, and an individualized education plan is designed for each of these children, a special education
expert said.
"We call it free appropriate public education (FAPE), which is supported by the federal law," Kathleen Donovan, manager of the Special
Education Parent Resource Center told Xinhua in a recent interview.
The FAPE is now guaranteed by a legislation called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and that every state must work out regulations to support the law, she said.
However, before special education became mandatory in the United States in 1975, only one fifth of all 5 million children with disabilities in the country went to school. Many U.S. states even excluded these children from the education system.
"But then more and more people came to believe that all children can learn and all children are entitled to free appropriate public education," said Donovan.
Nowadays, virtually all U.S. children with disabilities have access to free public education.
"The law ensures that the public schools can provide special education," said the expert.
However, in some rare cases, when a child has a severe disability and if the public school can not provide an appropriate education, then a small number of these students will be contracted to a private school, she said.
Generally speaking, "Most U.S. public schools have the resources to provide what children with disabilities need," and the majority of these students can be supported in their neighborhood schools.
"Every public school has special education. Every public school district is required to support all the children within it, in Arlington and elsewhere," said Donovan.
In U.S. public schools, there are various specialized programs designed for educating children with disabilities, such as the programs for children with autism and for children with functional life skill needs, she said.
Special curriculums will also be designed for them.
On the question of how a child with disabilities can get appropriate special education in America, Donovan said, "Every school system is required to do a few things."
The first step is called referral. A teacher, a parent, a doctor or anyone can refer a child who has or is suspected of having a disability to a special committee, sometimes known as "child study committee".
That committee has at least two staff members and parents of the referred child are included in all its decisions.
The committee must meet in 10 days after receiving the referral and if members of the committee agree, the schools will pay for evaluations of the child.
The evaluations, including speech and educational, medical, social and psychological tests, must be made within 65 days after the committee agrees to do so.
The evaluations are supervised by an eligibility committee comprising the child's parents, teachers, school principals, social workers and psychologists.
The committee will then decide whether the child meet the criteria of the federal disability definitions.
Within 30 days after the child is determined by the committee to be eligible for special education, authorities then must work with the child's parents to design an individualized education plan (IEP) for the child.
When the IEP is worked out, the child will be put in a special education program at a local public school.
"Most children with disabilities get great benefit from our special education system," said Donovan. In the United States, teachers or experts are not permitted to talk about individual students with disabilities.
Donovan, a former special education teacher, cited some examples of those students without disclosing their names.
"I used to have a boy student with severe cerebral disabilities that impact his muscles. The school provides physical therapy for helping him to learn," she said.
"He finally learns to walk and a special communication device helps him to express himself by pushing buttons. Now he is graduated from high school and finds a job."
U.S. laws guarantee free appropriate public education for people with disabilities between the ages of 3 to 21 from kindergarten to high school. College education is not guaranteed for these children.