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Home › Articles › Special Needs › Here's an IDEA

Here's an IDEA

Earlier Help for Special Needs Children

By Kelly Burgess

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This year marks the 25th anniversary of the passage and implementation of the Individuals With Disabilities Special Education Act, or IDEA. When originally passed, it was a landmark piece of legislation. For the first time, our government acknowledged that the public school system had an obligation to provide an appropriate education to all children regardless of their abilities.

Since then, it has been modified a number of times (the act is reviewed and reauthorized every five years), but there are always areas for improvement. This year the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD) is urging Congress to focus on changing the category of specific learning disabilities. Because of the structure, or lack thereof, of today's bureaucracy-laden special education systems, many children have already been failing for several years before they ever get the help they need. Some even end up in special education when that could possibly have been avoided with early intervention.

A Long Struggle
When Teresa Ankney's son, John-Randall, was in first grade, he didn't start reading when the other children did. The school district insisted that there was nothing wrong, and he just needed some extra help at home. By mid-year, Ankney was dreading the nightly flash card sessions because they didn't seem to be helping at all. She and John-Randall were becoming increasingly frustrated. She was convinced that is wasn't merely "developmental" as the teacher seemed to think.

"They tested him and found nothing wrong," says Ankney. "Finally, they suggested that he had ADD, and if we medicated him, he could read. Later I found out that they had omitted the subtests that would have revealed that he was dyslexic. By the time we figured it out, he was really failing and falling apart emotionally."

After a long, fruitless battle with their district, Ankney and her husband enrolled John-Randall in a school that specialized in treating dyslexic children. He's now reading well, but she's forever soured on the special education system and its "wait-to-fail" mentality.

What Works, What Doesn't
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