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Special education is instruction designed for students with disabilities or gifts and talents, who also have special learning needs.

Some of these students have difficulties in formal institutions so they need special education provisions to function in their classrooms.

Key Points

• Others generally do well in regular classrooms. but they also need special educational provisions to realize their full potential.
• Special education may be provided under a variety of administrative plans.
• Some exceptional students are served in the regular classroom by their regular 'Classroom teacher, sometimes in consultation with other professionals such as psychologists and teachers with more experience.
• Some are served by an itinerant teacher who moves from institution to institution, or by a resource person.
• Sometimes, students are placed in a diagnostic perspective center so that their special needs can be determined.
• Hospital and homebound instruction are provided only when the student is unable to go to regular classes.
• Finally, the residential school provides educational services and management of the daily living environment for students with disabilities who must receive full-time care.

Hence, we can conclude that special education is associated with the educational programme for the disabled and gifted both.

A child with visual impairment is integrated into the school for sighted children, and the better it is for the child's development and learning. However, to make this possible, the head of the school, general teachers, and special teachers have to develop strategies so that the integration takes place in the real sense of the word.

Key Points

Using appropriate teaching-learning materials is vital for children with visual impairment.

Some teaching-learning materials are readily available in the market, whereas some have to be made by the parent-teacher.

The following are some of the common teaching-learning materials available in the market for educating children with visual impairment:

• Braille slate and stylus
• Braillers
• Audio cassettes or CDs can also be used for teaching purposes.
• The video materials should also have audio so that those without sight can understand what is being shown in the video.
• A variety of tactile aids (including the use of relief papers, which provide upward tactile impressions, for preparing geometrical figures)
• Braille reading readiness material
• Embossed maps
• Mobility maps of the city or village where the individual studies/ lives
• Inch and centimeter graph sheets using the brailler
• Low vision aids

Hence, we can conclude that a student with visual impairment' should be provided support with audio CDs.

Assessment is a process of collecting, receiving, and using data for the purpose of improvement in the learning process. It is one of the crucial components of the teaching-learning process.

• Assessment does more than just measuring learning. There are two main types of assessments which include 'summative' and 'formative' assessment.

Key Points

Assessment :

• directs the weakness of the learner.
• makes reliable decisions about educational planning.
• determines the effectiveness of the learning process or program.
• serves as a feedback for the students as well as the teachers.
• lays emphasis on thought process and de-emphasize memorization.
• assesses both scholastic and co-scholastic aspects of a child's growth.

Hence, it could be concluded that assessment provides feedback to the learner only is not correct regarding the concept of assessment.

Important Points

Summative Assessment:

• It is a type of assessment that measures, certifies, and reports the level of students' learning by assessing them at the end of the term.

Formative assessment:

• It is a type of assessment which refers to monitor learners' progress throughout the teaching-learning process to diagnose learner's learning difficulties.

Modes of learning are as important as the content. High performance achieved through rote memorization is not preferred in evaluating the growth of the pupils. We use some procedures and techniques to collect data about pupil progress and growth to determine the extent to which these varied mathematical learning objectives have been achieved. 

Measurement of any aspect of an object or phenomenon is its quantitative description.

NOTE:

• Measurement refers to the process by which the attributes or dimensions of some object or phenomena are quantified.
• More precisely, measurement is defined as the assignment of numerals to objects or events according to rules.
• Assessment is a process by which information is obtained relative to some known objective or goal.
• Evaluation refers to the value judgement made on the phenomenon, taking into consideration the quantitative and/or the qualitative information collected on it over a particular period of time.

Hence, we conclude that measurement is a quantitative description.

A power test is one that has a generous time limit so that most examinees are able to attempt every item. Usually, such tests have items that are generally arranged in increasing order of difficulties. In many intelligence tests, there are certain items that are too difficult for anyone to solve, for example; Raven’s progressive matrices.

NOTE:

• Speed test are timed tests that is they examine the subject’s speed of responding within the stipulated period of time. Test items in a speed test are of uniform difficulty but the time limit is such that no examinee can attempt all the items (Chadha 1996). A pure speed test is a test composed of items so easy that the subject never gives a wrong answer and his score is equal to the number of questions attempted by him for example the clinical speed and accuracy test.
• Performance Test are those that require the examinees to perform a task rather than answer some questions. Such a test prohibits the use of language in items. Occasionally oral language is used to give instruction or the instruction may also be given through gesture and pantomime.

Hence, the above statement is about power test.

Plus curriculum means the development of skills specific to blindness such as Braille reading, Braille writing, orientation and mobility, daily living skills, sensory training, and use of mathematical devices such as Taylor’s frame and abacus. 

• It is an education programme, especially for inclusive education.
• The need for a plus curriculum based on the common goals for achieving arithmetic competence equally for Sighted arid children with visual impairment is warranted.
• Curriculum on skill areas that are specific to special difficulties of CWSN.
• Concretised experiences at the lower levels leading to more formal and abstract experiences at higher levels will help the Child with Visual Handicap to acquire arithmetic competence at a comparative level to his sighted peer.

Hence, we can conclude that the Plus curriculum is generally used in the inclusive educational programme.

Hearing impairment refers to hearing loss that prevents a person from totally receiving sounds through the ear. If the loss is mild, the person has difficulty hearing faint or distant speech.

Important Points

Audiometer: It is the most relevant investigation to measure hearing threshold. An audiometer is a machine used for evaluating hearing acuity. An audiometer is an instrument that delivers tones of different frequencies and intensity to ear-by-ear phones. Routinely tested frequencies are 125,250,500,1000,2000,4000 & 8000 Hz.

• Each frequency is tested increasing the intensity of sound in 5dB steps.
• The amount of intensity that has to be raised above the normal level is a measure of the degree of hearing impairment at that frequency.
• Air and bone conduction threshold and measured at different frequencies and plotted as an audiogram.

Hence, we can conclude that the 'Audiometer' device is used to measure hearing acuity.

Learning disability refers to a neurological disorder that causes cognitive impairment. Dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, etc are the most common learning disability.

Key Points Psychological tests used for the assessment of disability may be broadly classified as criterion-referenced tests and norm-referenced tests.

• Criterion referenced-tests are those, which do not have a norm or standard to compare. The individual’s own performance is used as the basis for comparison with his future performance in order to measure the change, which may be in response to education or training.
• The Norm-referenced test (NRT) is a standardized test that helps to determine a student’s place in the ranking. This is accomplished by comparing the student’s performance to a norm or average of performance to a norm or average of performances by other similar students.

Other types of tests are as follows:

• Informal reading inventory is a diagnostic tool that is used to assess student's reading comprehension & accuracy. It is administered individually.
• A standardized test is a test that has been developed from tryouts and experimentation to ensure that it is reliable and valid, for which norms have been established, and which provides uniform procedures for administering and for scoring the test. When such type of test is made for language proficiency, it is called a standardized linguistic test.

In India Baqer Mehdi and B.K.Passi were the first to develop creativity tests. Passi test of creativities is a standardized Indian test for measuring creativity. The definition of creativity, which was used as the basis of Passi Tests. Creativity is given as: ‘Creativity is a multidimensional (verbal and nonverbal) ‘attribute differentially distributed among people and includes chiefly the factors of seeing problems, fluency, flexibility, originality, inquisitiveness and persistency.’ 

Passi Tests of Creativity have the following sub-tests:

• Seeing Problems Test: This test has 4 questions and students are asked to write the defects and problems of a postcard, chappel and the like.
• Unusual Uses Test: This test has 2 questions where students are asked to write the usual and unusual uses of a piece of cloth, a bottle.
• Consequences Test: In this test, students are asked to write the consequences for improbable situation. Ex:

(i) Suppose all people become mad (ii) suppose all females become males, and the like.

• Inquisitiveness Test: In this test, students are asked to write a number of questions on a metronome and a placard.
• Persistency Test: In this test, students are given a set of cubes, half cubes and cuboids. They are asked to construct a number of different shapes out of these given objects.
• Elaboration Test: Students are given incomplete figures and students have to add details to them.

NOTE:

• Guilford and Torrance were the first psychologists to assess creativity. They found that many abilities put together form creativity.
• Getzels & Jackson (1962) found that, when two contrasting groups of children were formed, one of high scorers on tests of divergent thinking or 'creativity', the other of high I.Q.

Hence, the Passi test of creativities is a standardized Indian test for measuring creativity.

Deafness means a hearing impairment that is so severe that the child is impaired in processing linguistic information through hearing, with or without amplification and that adversely affects a child’s educational performance (IDEA, 2004).

For English achievement and retention level of the hearing-impaired pupils, Fitzgerald key method is used. Edith Mansfield Fitzgerald, a deaf American woman, invented a system for the deaf to learn the proper placement of words in the formation of sentences. 

Key Points

Other keywords are:

• Braille System: It refers to a pattern of raised dots called "Braille"  to represent letters, numbers, and punctuation marks, that can be felt with a finger.
• The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool that has been used since ancient times and is still in use today.

Hence, we conclude that Fitzgerald's key method is used for the deaf-learners to learn the proper grammatical construction of a sentence.