Expert: Schools could be swamped by new wave of disabilities
December 3rd, 2009From the [UK] Independent:
A leading British academic says enhanced survival rates for premature babies will cause a rapid surge in the number of students with disabilities, and could overwhelm the school system.
Professor Barry Carpenter of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust said recent medical advances now make it possible for 80 percent of premature babies to survive, but half have severe disabilities and represent “a new breed” of children who will need to be taught differently than children seen previously.
“There is an ever-increasing group of children with complex needs who do not fit the current range of learning environments, curriculum models, or teaching and learning approaches, and who are challenging our most skilled teachers,” he said.
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December 15th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
The concern over this influx of disabled babies should not be on how they will “swamp” or “overwhelm” schools, but it should be on whether school systems, universally, will be able to handle a more prominent group of students that have previously gone unnoticed. Many other posts on this site, like the recent “D.C. parents push for social supports for kids with autism” indicate that school systems are failing in their efforts to accommodate children with disabilities. This leads me to think that this “new breed” of school children is not new at all, but were most likely slighted or overlooked in the past. The presence of more children with different needs grants schools the opportunity to uncover what new styles of learning could benefit all of their students.