Individuals With Disabilities, Essay Example

Individuals with disabilities are at high risk for victimization. Alex Williams’ situation is somewhat unique because he presents with several physical disabilities and has an abnormally low IQ. His mid-brain abnormality, cerebral palsy, history of seizures, and developmental delays make him particularly susceptible. One of the risk factors that made Alex susceptible to abuse is that he was unable to communicate its occurrence to his parents or other adults due to his disability. Furthermore, even after the abuse was uncovered, it was difficult to determine the details of the events for the same reason. In addition, individuals that attack the disabled do so in part because they believe they can get away with it. Although this does not always occur, the likelihood that abuse will go unreported encourages many people to engage in this behavior if they believe that it will get the disabled individuals to respond.

One important way to increase accountability for teachers who work with students with severe special needs is to allow the class to be team taught. This could involve two or more teachers depending on the individual needs of the students in each classroom. Team teaching of children with mental and physical disabilities would be beneficial for several reasons. First of all, children with learning disabilities need extra help. The presence of one or more adults in the room will allow them to achieve the individualized learning attention that they deserve. Furthermore, this system will act as a check and balances to ensure that both educators are engaging in proper classroom behavior.

The team teaching process will ensure proper classroom behavior in several ways. The most obvious of which is that when one teachers observes the other teacher treating his or her student in a manner than is inappropriate, the behavior will be reported to the principal. In addition, prevention of inappropriate behavior is more likely in this setting because each teacher will be concerned with the other’s opinion with them. Even if one teacher has an urge to strike a child, it is likely that he or she will resist it on this basis. Lastly, having two or more teachers in the room will allow them to cope with the stress that is involved in working with disabled children. While the experience can occasionally be rewarding, educating disabled individuals requires unique skills and patience. Therefore, the teachers could counsel each other so that they encourage one another and help each other through times of stress.

An additional way to increase accountability for teachers who work with disabled students would be to integrate them into a classroom with regular education children. This process will work similarly to the team teaching mentioned above, but the accountability will come from the regular education students rather than another teacher. Furthermore, this immersion will allow the disabled child to feel more normal because he or she is not being singled out.

To better protect disabled children from abuse in the classroom it is essential to enforce harsher penalties upon faculty members that commit these crimes. While the abuse of any individual should not be tolerated, these children are special because they are more likely to be victimized. As a consequence, jail time for those found guilty of this crime should be increased significantly. Furthermore, schools need to develop education programs that make teachers aware of the vulnerability of these students and how to determine whether a child is being abused in addition to who the abuse should be reported to.