High Prevalence of Intellectually Disabled In Poverty, Research Paper Example

In the educational system today, there is a discriminatory attitude towards disabled students that come from underprivileged backgrounds. The educational system has not provided the answer to why more people from poverty are intellectually disabled. In a global report by Hear Our Voices(2006), found that people living poverty with an intellectually disability face social barriers that prevent those families from obtaining access to the proper disability agencies. The supporting agencies are so overloaded and that the underprivileged families that do not have the resources in the area in which they live (pg.4).There are many agencies private and public that have funds to help the needy, however, the criteria is so out of touch with the families poverty levels they never receive support. Another reason children living poverty with an intellectually disability is because they are exposed to more undetected household fumes that affect their development, and the lack of access for the parents to provide timely immunization shots. The global countries outside of the United States have reason for the epidemic because some of the countries are too poor to support the poverty stricken intellectually disabled child.

There is no excuse for a child with an intellectual disability living in the United States that should be able to live to 5 years of age without one immunization shot. According to Social Worker Coyle (2014), there are so many children with intellectually disabilities that fall in between the cracks because their area Medicaid benefits may not be covered from the child’s pediatric office. The parent who is working will not take the time to travel across the town with a child that is not mobile to receive shots which is one of many barriers of access for intellectually disabled children.This phenomenon is far reaching the entire globe from the United States, Africa, and Asia to Central and South America. It has been reported that over 130 million families globally have someone in their family that is intellectually disabled (Hear Our Voices, 2006).

One of the reasons the United States has more students from poverty are intellectually disabled is become of the lack of nutrition which leads to more serious medical conditions. Many of the conditions brought on by poverty can be genetic or from poor diets because the family cannot afford to buy healthy meals. The students from cultural deprived areas grow up with more issues of malnutrition, childhood diseases, poor food choices, and poor healthcare access. In the last 30 years, there has been a rash of serious diseases of children in poverty with intellectually disabilities. The Health Department treats poverty children with intellectually disabilities more than any other member of the population while preventing 250 cases of children with intellectual disability from poverty receiving dietary treatment, 1000 cases of immune intellectuallydisabled children with immune diseases, and 4,000 intellectual disabled children with untreated measles(Alexander,1998 as cited in The Arc(2011).

The educational system has to shoulder some of the blame because they have a high prevalence of intellectual disabled students moved into Special Education because of their poverty status. The new breed of educators are not equipped to assess the child’s needs along with stringent academic measures that make the teacher concentrate of academic excellence at any cost. The best example is in Florida teachers were graded by how well their students performed on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test(FCAT). The teachers would lose their jobs, bonus or be fired if their students did not perform. As result, the children that were more difficult to teach, learned a little slower, or took up too much of the teacher’s time would be automatically labeled intellectually disabled. That student would not be tested with the population of regular students but tested with his intellectually disabled peers. Consequently, the school system is forcing children into the special education test bracket to improve their schools overall school scores. If that student is, allow to remain with the regular classrooms it would drive down the overall scores.

The best evidence of this phenomenon was researched by the National Center for Learning Disabilities (2014), who found that disabled students with disabilities represent the largest population of students served in the educational system. The study also found that approximately 2.3 million students receive special education and mental services. It is the responsibility of the educational systems early childhood programs to bring about new innovative ways of observing students that may potentially be intellectually disabled without labeling the children in poverty.

The early childhood and preschool programs are the first educationalists that have the opportunity to identify the intellectually disabled student. The teachers observe the students during the first years of cognitive learning for elementary children. However, students that have speech problems because of language, or they come from an underprivileged family are labeled by special education teachers as intellectually disabled with any clinical observations. Therefore, the educational system does not have enough social programs in school to assist those students that may be borderline but with some intervention may be able to avoid the push to special education.

The disabled students are given this label without any clinical diagnosis or, supporting data is often labeled as mentally retarded. These students are often enrolled in special education because the studentsare struggling with the academic curriculum. There is a dire need for the special education programs to learn new techniques for identifying students with disabilities instead of using the single criteria of students grades to determine if they are potentially intellectually disabled(Aron & Loprest,2012). The bias educational system needs reform to change the way these students pushed through the special education maze without adhering to the students’ rights under Individual with Disabilities Act (IDEA). The IDEA clearly states that all families will not be denied a proper education including fair disabilities programs that identify the students that need support and on going assessments.

It is a common occurrence in the special education classroom to mistakenly place students in Special Education classes because they come from anunfortunate background. The students that live in a world of poverty are at a higher risk of family barriers, malnutrition, inadequate health, and a home environment that may not be conducive to learnings. Poverty does equal intellectually disabled (The Arc,2011). The educational system in the new millennium has change to putting pressure on the teacher to perform in the classroom at the expense of children living in poverty with intellectually disabilities. The primary problem today is teachers are tolerant or equipped to handled students with an intellectually disabilities that may have a slower learning curve.

Another reason students with intellectually disability are routed to special education is the outdated techniques that are utilized by special teachers, counselors, and behavior administrators are out dated because they utilize observations and assumptions without consulting a behavioral, clinical, or psychiatric professional.It is important for the educational system to change their obsolete perceptionson how to correctly identify students that have some form of intellectual disabilities. The secondary problem is students with intellectually disabilities will be label disabled students without any evidence of cognitive, behavioral or mental illness impairments while classifying them as intellectually disabled. The case study by Westphal and Mukherjee (2014), found that the State of Florida was incorrectly labeling constituents as intellectually disabled because of IQ. The US Supreme Court’s decision said any disability assessment of concerning an individual’s level of disability; the assessment must include a clinical examination and diagnosis.

There is legal precedence that recognizes that the educational and business arenas use old and ineffective criteria to determine which adult or child is intellectually disabled. The courts also made recommendations to create a better relationship between the mental health agencies and clinical diagnostic community to ensure people are not labeled as intellectually disabled. The assumption that an individual with a very low IQ does not mean that person has a person is automatically put in the intellectual disability category.

The teachers need to be re-educated about recognizing the characteristics of a student that is suffering from poverty versus a true learning disability. The student may be lethargic with poor memories due to problems at home such as no computers at home, parents language problems or family struggling with employment and food resources. The students that have intellectual disabilities have substantial limitations in both mental and intellectual areas with underlying behavioral issues. The special educational teachers often make a mistake labeling the poverty student as intellectual disabled because of the student’s behavior. The teachers do not considered the full realm of identification of disabilities such as testing, mental issue, learning disabilities and problems with adapting socially. The educational system offer special education interventional, however, they label more poverty-stricken students as intellectually disabled with further investigation of family, language, speech or underlying social problems (Aron &Loprest, 2012).

The educational systems are responsible for the sending these borderlines intellectually disabled students in the mental health system. In the educational system, the students that are identified as students with social problems and mental dysfunctions will be experience a treatment plan of counseling, special education placement and a regiment of drug therapy. The students that come from a poverty social condition are the prime candidates for strong drug treatments that never allow the student to lose the label of intellectually disabled. The special education system needs to revamp their internal processes that constantly send these underprivileged students on the path to a lifetime treatment of drugs. The trend will continue because the poverty-stricken parents do not have access to properly mental facilities that can challenge the intellectually disabled label. It is unethical to label student as intellectually disabled because of his social class. In study by Donley and Hayward (2011), found that the educational and mental health community often will treat people with disabilities high multiple dosages of drugs. Often, they prefer to use drug treatment first instead of using less restrictive treatment options.

The early intervention programs are part of the problem why children living in poverty are channeled to the special education program. The correct identification early can separate the children with learning disabilities because of language barriers or those living in poverty. There are many behavioral and mental health agencies that are available to help with the early assignments without labeling all the poverty-strickenstudents (McCrea, 2014).

The early intervention programs are design to meet the educational needs to ensure they received a quality curriculum and to identify any developmental, or learning disabilities. The criteria for the Early Intervention Services (EIS) will include many students that are not intellectually disabled. The EIS uses three criteria such as the child is diagnosis with a high probability of developmental delays because of conditions like Down syndrome and physical limitations. The EIS program identifies which students are placed into these categories using these criteria found by (E-Parent, 2014):

1. The student that is diagnosed with developmental conditions that could indicate possible developmental delays such as cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and Downsyndrome
2. The student that may show symptoms of developmental delays such as inability to adapt in the classroom, cognitive issues, communication barriers and social/emotional dysfunctions
3. The identification of developmental delays by the state or local mental health agencies

The first problem that contributes to children that are intellectually disabled being sent through the EIS program is the eligibility policies and procedures that state all children that are entered into the EIS program can have one or more of the three criteria necessary for admission. The EIS model is broken because they allow the educational system to apply these reals with the broadest interpretations. The secondary problem with the EIS criteria is not all students with Downsyndrome or with physical limitations should not automatically be excluded from regular classes. The educational system is guilty of guiding those students into special education problems based on the diagnosis alone with is discriminatory. The school needs to make every concession to ensure the intellectually label student has the same educational access.

The second criteria’s that is bias, which sends children with intellectually problems into the EIS, program, as soon as they show any signs of development delays. The criteria’s are too broad, which the educational system chooses to use the broadest reasoning with narrowed application. The student may have only one of the following disabilities such as communication, hearing, vision, or mental conditions; however, they perform at the highest academic levels. The early intervention programs should be required to endure more training on working with the mental health community, EIS programs, school mental health coordinators and parents to ensure the intellectually student was not placed because he lives in poverty. The third EIS criteria arethat allows intellectually disabled children to be easily routed into these state agencies. This statement is broad because all students that have been identified by the state are not all intellectually disabled students. The primary reason this happens is that the elementary schools are not equipped with handling students that are outside of the normally early interventional programs.

It is obvious that the school system needto develop their own in-house Special Education programs with quality Special Education teachers that have a background in identifying intellectually disabled students. The early interventional programs need revamping to include the assistance of mental health, psychiatric, and behavioral professionals during the schools early development of young children. The educational system needs to adopt a program that allows social workers and other community agencies to assist with the identification of intellectually disabled children. In addition, the EIS criteria’s need to be narrowed from such a wide broad assessment criteria that limits the scope of determine which children are intellectually disabled. However, the state, the school system, healthcare access and the government agencies all contribute to intellectually disabled children from poverty to be routed in a discriminatory way.

References

Aron, L., &Loprest, P. (2012, Spring). Disability and the education system. The Future of Children, 22(1), 97+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA290520809&v=2.1&u=20398_pclc&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=dbd03153fc86c707e2a3590042cc13d8

Donley, M., & Hayward, B. (2011, September). Advocate for intellectually disabled. Australian Nursing Journal, 19(3), 3. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA266455607&v=2.1&u=20398_pclc&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=36d45101963026201e693868bb5a9c5e

E-Parent. (2014 Sept).An overview of early intervention services. (2014, September). The Exceptional Parent, 44(9), 56 http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA382534732&v=2.1&u=20398_pclc&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=8bbe821d724b0af7f3560a5911dee458

Hear Our Voices (2006, Nov). People with an intellectually disability and their families speak out on poverty and exclusion. Retrieved November 28, 2014 from http://inclusion-international.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Hear-Our-Voices-with-Covers.pdf

McCrea, E. (2014, February). The power of early identification: an ASHA toolkit can help you educate the public about the critical role of early screening in effective intervention. ASHA Leader, 19(2), 8+. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA358192732&v=2.1&u=20398_pclc&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=a13bfed21350ccad4585b421347a2980

National Center for Learning Disabilities. (2014).Learning disability facts. Retrieved November 27, 2014 from http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/what-is-ld/learning-disability-fast-facts

The Arc. (2011). Causes and prevention of intellectual disabilities. Retrieved November 28, 2014 from http://www.thearc.org/what-we-do/resources/fact-sheets/causes-and-prevention

Westphal, A., & Mukherjee, M. (2014, March). Defining intellectual disability: the case of hall versus Florida. Psychiatric Times, 31(3), 1. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA363189632&v=2.1&u=20398_pclc&it=r&p=GPS&sw=w&asid=e6ed3b9939b2c0d93d6fcf19fc7f755c