Special Needs Education has evolved over the years through the following stages. Discuss the various stages

2. Neglect period.
Before the 17th Century, people with disabilities all over the world were considered socially and physically less capable. Hence they were not easily accepted and regarded as part and parcel of the family and community. For instance, many people with disabilities suffered neglect and rejection. This was because families and communities had negative attitudes towards disability. They regarded disability to be caused by witchcraft, curses, or a punishment from God for wrong done. It was considered contagious. Consequently persons with disabilities were isolated and their needs were not adequately provided for by the families and communities.
Some African communities used to throw such children in the bush because women were expected to give birth to healthy babies. Any weakling was not to be given any chance to live for they were considered a burden to the community.
For example: the people of Sparta in Greece used to kill babies with distinct disability features. Some great philosophers as Plato and Socrates condemned people with disabilities as not capable of reasoning therefore could not learn. This strengthened exclusion of people with disabilities. Families with children who were handicapped were also discriminated upon. People could not marry from families with a history of disabilities in their genealogy.
The negative attitudes of the society towards persons with disabilities have persisted through the history of special needs education. it is the negative attitude, which has made children with special needs and families to be segregated. Due to society‘s attitude, the earliest names of people with special needs had negative connotations. These names were abusive, derogative and dehumanizing.

2. Private tuition period
In the 18thcentury, individuals and families who saw the potential in the children with disabilities started teaching the children with special needs at family level. For example, St. John of Berverly who was a bishop taught a person with hearing impairment how to articulate and talk. In 685 AD Didymus was reported to have been the first person to devise touch reading materials for the visually handicapped in Alexandria. Juan Martin Pablo Bonet of Germany who lived between 1579-1620 developed one hand manual alphabet.
Other people such as Jacob Berninilli (1654-1705) from Switzerland, Henry Baker (1698-1774) from United Kingdom, Johann Conrad Amman (1699-1730) form Holland, Jacob Rodiriguez (1715-1780), Napoleon Bonaparte 1 (1768-1780), Edward Seguin (1812) and Jean Marc-Itard (1798) all from France proved through teaching activities that it was possible to educate children with disabilities.

3. Institutionalization period
This practice was common in the USA and Europe in the 19th century. Institutionalization was a service provision whereby a residential facility was put in place to the house with children with varied special needs to protect them from neglect.
The original aim was to provide higher level of care and corrective rehabilitation with the objective of returning them to society after improvement. The earliest education to persons with disabilities was purely rehabilitations and upheld medical care. These two factors were emphasized with the hope that the disabled persons will be made normal or taken out of the disability world. All valuable time was however wasted at the expense of educational provision by trying to reverse disability.
However the conditions in the institutions deteriorated to such levels that they became more of asylums and poor houses where children were abandoned and neglected. People looking after them did not show kindness and love. They were seen as lesser beings. Individuals who felt that they had to reform the society started giving educational services in these institutions to the children with disabilities. In Kenya, custodial approach was introduced churches and service providers visited them and gave special services and education. This started after the Second World War. This was for the disabled soldiers.
In Kenya the first institutions were meant for rehabilitation. Persons with disabilities who went through such institutions got so much of vocational education and rehabilitation at the expense of academic work. Sessional Paper No. 5 of 1968, focused care and rehabilitation of children with special needs. Education of the deaf and partially hearing emphasized speech therapy such that children ere ed to be taken out of the lent This meant using oral ech organs to talk like a person without hearing impairment. All these were done at the expense of the prescribed school curriculum within the regular education system.

4. Separation period
In the early 20th century up to 1960‘s as institutionalization was being phased out, it was realized that children with special needs in education could not learn alongside the non-disabled children due to their special educational needs. As a result they were segregated and placed in special programmes. Special schools were started as residential institutions and grew in number in the first part of the 20th century. This separated children with their families and communities. Provision of service did not meet educational needs.
Some of the disadvantages of special institutions for the handicapped included lower academic expectations, lack of social interactions, restrictive environment, artificial life and separation from the community. As these disadvantages became clear, the parents of children with disabilities and some people with disabilities started asking why they were not benefiting from the educational system. Some of them who had some skills could not compete favorably with the society after training. When they come back to live in society, they could not fit.

5. Normalization period.
Normalization can be defined as the creation of a learning and social environment as normal as possible for a child with special needs. Normalization started in early 1960‘s in Scandinavia and later got popularized in the United States by Wolfenberger. The main objectives of normalization were:
- To create and maintain environments that does not impose excessive restrictions on persons with disabilities.
- Create an arrangement that brings persons with disabilities as close as possible to the society and cultural mainstream.
- Guarantee that human and legal rights of persons with disabilities are protected.
Movements towards normalization included:
- Deinstitutionalization
- Regular education initiative
- Least restrictive environment
- Integration
- Inclusion
- Community based rehabilitation.

6. Deinstitutionalization
This is the process of releasing children with special needs from the confinement of residential institution into their local community. Negative aspects of institutionalization become more pronounced and unpopular in the 1960‘s. Advocates for the people with disabilities began developing alternative living conditions within community settings. It was felt that the children had to be within their own societies not far away from the family. Some were placed in special classes within the regular schools. For example, Aga Khan Unit for the Deaf (1958) was attached to the Aga Khan Primary School. Others were placed in small homes attached to regular schools.
For example, St John F. Kennedy Rehabilitation Centre in Nyabondo (1960) was attached to Nyabondo Primary School.
Some conditions that contributed to deinstitutionalization are:
- Some residential institutions offered little care
- Some were very dirty and repulsive
- Only few provided human treatment
- Quality of life for most people was not improved
- Many residential institutions failed to provide services due to poor planning.

7. Integration period
Integration is the provision of educational services to children with special needs within the regular school system. It is a philosophy which comes from the principles of normalization. It is sometimes referred to as mainstreaming. As society started to see those with special needs as part of the society, they became more tolerant and understanding. They felt that persons with disabilities could be integrated in the society. It involves the movement of children with disabilities from special schools to regular schools and from special classes to regular classes. It may take many forms but in all cases children are still seen as disabled which discriminates them within the same school.
The environment in which integration was practiced was not accommodative to children with special needs. Teachers and other pupils were supposed to be sensitive so as to accept a child with special needs as a part of the school community. As teachers in regular schools were not sensitized, lack of specialist teachers to work with them contributed to the failure of few willing teachers who wanted to teach such children.
Reading materials, curriculum content, instruction strategies and examinations adaptations were never put in place for modification. Nearly all classrooms and other buildings within the school did not consider the needs of children with special needs. The integration promoted normalization but the environment was not mortified due to lack of laws and legal framework to enforce it. Least restrictive environment criteria were not enforced in USA until 1975 when PL 94-142 Education for All Handicapped Children Act was enacted.
Children with special needs were subjected to some attitudes and assessments which they had to pass so as to benefit in the integration programmes. They were also not allowed to learn in a regular class without passing the set tests. Parents of children with special needs had no open choices for the education of their children. Some children who started from special schools then integrated later had potential and would have benefited in regular schools if they had the chance. Many learners who went to regular schools and found committed teachers succeeded in getting quality education. This was not ideal integration for it depended on the school, the teacher and the parent.

8. Inclusion period
Inclusion means recognizing individual differences thereby enabling those individuals obtain a good quality of life in their natural environment. It therefore means adjusting the home, the school and the society at large so that all individuals can have the feeling of belonging and develop in accordance with their potentials and difficulties within their environment. After the international year for the disabled in 1981, many organizations ?of‘ and ?for‘ persons with disability organized themselves and became vocal on the quality of education to be provided. The area of education in special schools was seriously discussed. It was seen that children with disabilities who went to regular schools got better education than those who went to special schools.
This made them aware that provision of education through inclusive approach was the best option. There was a definite move to address the learning needs by removing barriers in the family, school and community to enable them realize their full potential hence the philosophy of inclusion. Inclusion in education is referred to as inclusive education.

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francis1897 answered the question on March 9, 2023 at 08:44