American Education: Adapting to the Needs of Cognitively Disabled Students by Kiara

American Education: Adapting to the Needs of Cognitively Disabled Students by Kiara - July 2022 Scholarship Essay

As of 1975, special education has been deemed a protected branch in the government with the passing of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA). Its mission statement prides itself in “ ensuring that all children with disabilities are entitled to a free appropriate public education to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living”. In Texas alone, the Texas Education Agency increased its special education funding by $1 billion over a four year period, totaling approximately $4.02 billion in 2019-20. In contrast to increased funding and awareness on meeting the needs of special education students as ordered by law, the learning gap special needs students in grades K-12 face in comparison with their non-disabled peers is still prevalent. More specifically, students with cognitive disabilities face major challenges in the education system, making it difficult to excel in their particular studies. Despite the funding put into special education to allow for these students to perform to a certain caliber, many students don’t readily have access to these resources.
10 years from now, I want to see education become a branch of life that doesn’t limit cognitively disabled students based on preconceived notions and outdated statistics. Rather than viewing these students as just a protected group under law, they should be seen in the same way as their able-bodied peers. A major gap between progress that could be made for the future and the current events of the present lies within teachers. In America many cognitively disabled students are put in classrooms with general education teachers who have not undergone the proper training to attend to their needs in an appropriate manner. Over the next 10 years, to solve this problem, I would like to see co-teaching, a classroom technique proven to help students adapt, implemented into more and more classrooms across America. Co-teaching entails general education teachers teaming up with special education colleagues to gain experience in the classroom with cognitively disabled students as well as collaborating on Individualized Education Programs (IEP) in order to maximize the resources made available by school districts and give special education students from all backgrounds access to thoroughly trained instructors.
In conclusion, I hope that 10 years from now, students like me won’t feel so isolated from cognitively disabled students. I hope that one day in the future these students won’t be made fun of nor questioned for their “strange” behaviors. If these strategies are implemented into classrooms, 10 years from now cognitively disabled students won’t suffer from social isolation because after all, everyone is different.