Special Education

 

Special Education means specially designed instruction which meets the special educational and related needs of an exceptional child. It is distinguished from regular educational programme meant for non-exceptional children by some unusual quality, something uncommon, noteworthy. It is something special- special materials, special training techniques, special equipment and special help and or/ special facilities may be required for the special categories of children having special needs.

Intelligence Quotient

 

IQ stands for originally a ratio of the individual's mental age to his chronological age. (One modern intelligence tests it may be a standard score whose mean is 100 and standard deviation 16 in the appropriate reference population).

IQ ---MA/CA multiplying by 100

The IQ is the most commonly used index of brightness or Rate of mental development. Thus, it is a measure of intellectual functioning determined by dividing mental age by chronological age and multiplying by 100.

Achievement Test

Achievement tests are designed to measure a student's grasp of some body of knowledge or this proficiency in certain skills. Such tests are often used to measure achievement in arithmetic, chemistry, english composition, typing, medical diagnosis and other subjects of study. Most tests made by teachers for classroom use are achievement tests.

Adaptive Behaviour

 

The degree with which an individual meets the standards of personal independence and social responsibility expected for age and cultural group.

Age Norm

 

Age norm is the average score on an aptitude or achievement test for pupils of a particular age group. Age norm are usually reported in tables showing the average scores of students in a series of different age groups. It is used in Binet's test.

Age Scale

 

Age scale is a test in which the items are arranged in groups on the basis of the earliest age at which a group of typical, normal pupils can answer those items correctly. Binet's Intelligence test scale is an age scale.

Precocity

 

Precocity refers to remarkable early development. Many highly gifted children show precocity in particular areas of development, such as language, music, or mathematical ability, and the rate of intellectual development of all gifted children exceeds the rate for non-gifted children.

Insight

 

Insight may be divided as separating relevant from irrelevant information, finding novel and useful ways of combining relevant bits of information, or relating new and old information in a novel and productive way.

Genius

 

Genius has sometimes been used to indicate a particular aptitude or capacity in any area. More often, it has been used to indicate extremely rare intellectual powers (extremely high IQ or creativity).

Creativity

 

Creativity refers to the ability to express novel and useful ideas, to sense and elucidate novel and important relationships, and to ask previously unthought-of of, but crucial, questions.

Talent

 

In an ordinary sense, talent is used to indicate a special ability, aptitude, or accomplishment.

Giftedness

 

Giftedness refers to cognitive (intellectual) superiority (not necessarily of genius caliber), creativity, and motivation in combination and of sufficient magnitude to set the person apart from the vast majority of age-mates and make it possible for him or her to contribute something of particular value to society.

Exceptional Children

Exceptional children are those who require special education and related services if they are to realize full human potential.

Prevalence

 

Prevalence refers to the percentage of a population or number of individuals having a particular exceptionality. The prevalence of mental retardation, for example, might be estimated at 2.3 percent, which means that 2.3 percent of the population, or 23 people in every thousand, are assumed to be mentally retarded.

Special Education

 

Special Education means specially designed instructions that meet the unusual needs of an exceptional child. Special materials, teaching techniques, or equipment and/or facilities may be required. The singe most important goal of special education is finding and capitalizing on exceptional children's abilities.

Audiogram

 

Audiogram is a graphic representation of the weakest sound a person can hear at several frequency levels.

Audiology

 

It is a science dealing with hearing impairments, their detection, and remediation.

Blind

 

A legally blind person has visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye even with correction (e.g., eye glasses) or has a field of vision so narrow that its widest diameter subtends an angular distance no greater than 20 degrees. The fraction 20/200 means that the person sees at 20 feet what a person with normal vision sees at 200 feet. (Normal visual acuity is thus 20/20.) The inclusion of a narrowed field of vision in the legal definition means that a person may have 20/20 vision in the central field but severely restricted peripheral vision. Legally blind individuals qualify for certain legal benefits, such as tax advantages and money for special materials. In addition to this medical classification of blindness, there is also a category referred to as partially sighted. Partially sighted according to the legal classification system, have acuity falling between20/70 and 20/200 to the better eye with correction.

Blindisms

 

Blindisms refer to repetitive stereotyped movements such as rocking or eye rubbing; also characteristic of some severely retarded and disturbed children.

Braille

 

A system in which raised dots are used to allow blind people to 'read' with their fingertips, consists of a quadrangular cell containing from one to six dots whose arrangement denotes different letters and symbols.

Brain Dysfunction

 

A term applied to those in who there is suspected malfunctioning of the brain; used instead of the term brain damage or brain injury because it does not specify tissue damage. Many professionals, especially educators, have avoided use of the eye effects colour vision and distance vision.

Chronological age

Chronological age refers to how old a person is; used in comparison with mental age to determine the IQ score of an individual.

Cognitive mapping

  

A non-sequential way of conceptualizing the spatial environment that allows a visually impaired person to know where several points in the environment are simultaneously; allows for better mobility than does a strictly sequential conceptualization of the environment.

Decibel

  

Decibel is a unit of relative intensity of a sound; zero decibels

designate the point at which people with normal hearing can just detect sound.

Deviance

  

Deviance is a behaviour that is at variance with the socially accepted norm.

Divergent thinking

It is the ability to think inductively and suggest many different potential answers.

Down syndrome

  

Down syndrome is a condition resulting from a chromosomal abnormality; characterized by mental retardation and such physical signs as slanted-appearing eyes, flattened features, shortness, tendency toward obesity. The three major types of Down syndrome are trisomy 21, mosaicism, and translocation.

Educable mentally retarded

  

The traditionally used educator's classification label for an individual whose IQ is between 50 and 75; considered to be capable of learning basic academic subjects; loosely corresponds to the AAMR (American Association of Mental Retardation) category of mild retardation.

  

External locus of control

  

External locus of control is a personality characteristic in which individuals believe chance factors or people other than themselves are responsible for personal successes and failures; analogous to outer-directedness.

Fluency

Fluency means the flow with which oral language is produced.

Formative evaluation methods

Formative evaluation methods are measurement procedures used to monitor an individual student's progress. They are used to compare an individual to himself or herself, in contrast to standardized tests. (Tests which are primarily used to compare an individual to other students) Sometimes tests which are taking place at the end of a session are also known as formative evaluation.

Functional academics

Functional academics are that area of education in which practical skills are stressed rather than academic learning.

Generalization

  

A principle of learning referring to a person's ability to learn something in one situation or setting and then demonstrate it in another situation or setting; difficult for many disabled students, especially those with learning disability or mental retardation.

Hertz (Hz) unit

  

It is a measurement of the frequency of sound; refers to highness or lowness of a sound.

Hyperactivity

  

A higher degree of inappropriate motor activity than is considered typical for a particular age group.

Informal reading inventory (IRI)

  

A procedure used to appraise a child's level of reading competence in a particular area; consists of sequentially graded reading paragraphs.

Internal locus of control

A personality characteristic in which individuals believe they are responsible for their own successes and failures; analogous to inner directedness.

IQ-achievement discrepancy

  

When academic performance markedly lower than what would be appropriate for a student's intellectual capability it is known as IQ achievement discrepancy.

Itinerant teacher

  

A specialized teacher who goes from one school to another on a regular schedule to perform special instructional services for exceptional children; he also consults with regular teacher about special problems or techniques.

Kurzweil Reading Machine

It is a computerized device that converts print into speech for the visually impaired. The user places the printed material over a scanner that then 'reads' the material aloud by means of an electronic voice.

Language

Language is an arbitrary code or system of symbols to communicate meaning.

Language disorder

  

It refers to a lag in the ability to understand and express ideas that puts linguistic skills behind an individual's development in other areas, such as motor, cognitive, or social development.

Learned helplessness

It is a motivational term referring to a condition wherein a person believes that no matter how hard he or she tries, failure will result.

Locus of control

A motivational term referring to how people attribute their successes or failures, people with an internal locus of control believe that they themselves are the reason for success of failure, whereas people with an external locus of control believe outside forces (e.g., other people) influence how they perform.

Mental Retardation

  

  

Mental retardation refers to significantly sub average intellectual functioning resulting in or associated with impairments in adaptive behavior and manifested during the developmental period.

Maintenance

  

A principle of learning referring to a person's ability to demonstrate what he or she has learned a relatively long time (2 or 3 months) after he or she first learned it; difficult for many disabled students, especially those with learning disabilities or mental retardation.

Mediation

Mediation is a strategy of attaching a verbal label to something so that it can be more easily remembered.

Memory level of teaching learning

Teaching learning at memory level is simply committing factual material to memory. Morris L. Bigge says that memory level teaching learning can be defined as the teaching learning task 'which supposedly embraces committing factual materials to memory and nothing else.' Herbert is considered exponent of this concept.

Mental age

  

Mental age refers to the IQ test score that specifies the age level at which an individual is functioning

Meta-cognitive skills

  

Meta-cognitive skills are those abilities that people use to know their own cognitive processes. Meta-cognition refers to one's understanding of what strategies are available for learning and what strategies are best used in which situations.

Meta-cognitive strategy instruction

Providing alternative thinking strategies to students to facilitate the learning process are known as meta-cognitive strategy instruction.

Mild retardation

  

Mild retardation is a classification used by the AAMR (American Association of Mental Retardation) to specify an individual whose IQ test score is between 55 and 68 or 69;

corresponds to educator's label of educable retarded; individual is capable of learning basic academic subjects.

Minimal brain dysfunction

  

A term used to describe a child who shows behavioral but not neurological signs of brain injury; the term is not as popular as it was, primarily because of its lack of diagnostic utility- i.e. some children who learn normally show signs indicative of minimal brain dysfunction.

Mnemonic keyword method

  

It is a cognitive training strategy used to help children with memory problems to remember curriculum content. The teacher transforms abstract information into a concrete picture, which depicts the material in a more meaningful way.

Moderate retardation

  

A classification used by the AAMR (American Association of Mental Retardation) to specify an individual whose IQ test score is between 40 and 55; corresponds to educator's label of trainable retarded; individual can usually learn functional academics and vocational skills.

Morphology

  

Morphology is the study within psycholinguistics of words formation; of how adding or deleting parts of words changes their meaning. Learning disabled students often make morphological errors.

Normalization

  

Normalization is a philosophical belief in special education that every individual, even the most handicapped, should have an educational and living environment as close to normal as possible.

Optacon

  

Optacon is a device used to enable the blind to 'read' consists of a camera that converts print into an image of letters, which are then produced via vibration into the finger.

Otology

Otology is the medical specialty dealing with the ear and its diseases.