Culturally Sensitive Special Education Essay

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education and the usual plight of special education students, both identified and yet-to-be identified, the role of the educational diagnostician is one of great import and significance. Known by several different names, the educational diagnostician is charged with the diagnosing and identification of leaning problems. The focus of this report will be the work of the educational diagnostician in the elementary school system and framework. In addition to the educational diagnostician himself or herself, there is also the involvement and partnership of other employees in the elementary school framework including teachers at the elementary school and other school employees such as counselors and administrators. While some may hold that the role of the educational diagnostician is not all that complicated, this could not be further from the truth as the identification of problems as well as dealing with and working with the same alongside other school employees, the parents of the child, the other children around the child and other school employees can be quite a challenge.

Analysis

When it comes to the job of an educational diagnostician, the parameters and facets mentioned in the introduction are easy enough to predict, albeit difficult to deal with sometimes. However, there are some factors and details that further complicate the situation. The major one of those is how culture can have an effect on the diagnostic and other processes that an educational diagnostician would engage in. For example, if a disabled child (or a child that is thought to be disabled) is Latino, this can create a number of challenges. First, the child may be averse to cultural examples and cues that a non-Latino child may be completely fine with. Second, the parents of the child, who are major stakeholders in the treatment and development of their child, may not speak English all that well (if they speak it at all) and this can present hurdles when it comes to working with them to assist their disabled child (Aceves, 2014). However, this is a challenge that a trained and adept educational diagnostician must be ready for and it must happen in a collaborative way (Caputo & Langher, 2015).

Before going any further, there are two important terms that are mundane to this dynamic that should be defined and fleshed out. When it comes to the word collaboration, any educated person knows what that word means in general terms but they may or may not understand what it would mean within the broader rubric of working with culturally diverse clients as an educational diagnostician. Traditional collaboration from an educational diagnostician would typically manifest via the educational diagnostician working with the important stakeholders involved in a child's plight and progress. This would include any teachers of the student, the student's parent or parents (which can include step-parents and legal guardians), the child himself or herself, the principal, any counselors or mental health professionals that work with the child and so on. The other primary term that should be defined is culturally responsive practice. In short, this means acclimating and adjusting to the cultural norms and values of the child and his or her family rather than using the same cookie-cutter approach on everyone (Max, 2012).

When it comes to a child that is Latino, this would mean including at least one professional that knows Spanish fluently. If that person is the educational diagnostician, then this is all the better. These language barriers often center on families that are first- or second-generation immigrants from Central or South America. However, there are other groups that may have similar language implications with the child himself or herself and/or the family of the same. However, there are also folks that come from Asia or even Europe that may have the same underlying implications and problems. Other times, it is not remotely about language and more about cultural implications that are entirely or at least mostly American (Kangas, 2014). A sterling example of this would be children of the African-American community. Anyone who knows the history of African-Americans in the United States knows the depth and depravity of what has happened to them over the years. Despite a vast amount of progress including the end of slavery, the end of the Jim Crow era, Brown v. Board of Education and the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960's, there are still some persistent and pernicious problems that center on culture, African-Americans and how they fit into society. To put it concisely, African-Americans are still very much segregated from the rest of society in many ways and this leads to a discomfort when the cultural cues and patterns emblematic of the black community are not catered to as part of the educational process (Gold & Richards, 2012).

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What this means for an educational diagnostician is that the "same old approach" used for other children will probably not work (or will not work as well) than an approach that caters to the cultural and societal realities that the child in question faces if they happen to be African-American, Latino or if they are from any other cultural, ethnic and/or racial minority in the United States. Another good example would be the child of a Muslim family (Morgan et al., 2015).

Now that the challenge and gauntlet faced by educational diagnosticians and other professionals and stakeholders in the mixed have been identified, it should now be discussed how precisely one should go about being culturally aware and sensitive when it comes to being an educational diagnostician and the process that is conducted by the same. The scholarly literature is rife with sources that point to the idea that cultural competence and/or cultural sensitivity in general are paramount and very important when it comes to special education across the board up to and including transitions out of such programs. However, the education quality and depth that occurs in the elementary setting is far and away the most important. If a special education student is not properly served in an elementary setting, this will tend to put them greatly behind the curve when it comes to the challenges that they will face later in their schooling and what they will face after their schooling as a child and teen are over. Students that are known as CLD, which is short for culturally and linguistically diverse, are particularly vulnerable and in need of special and specific care as they face shortfalls and challenges that non-CLD students face. Put another way, a white male student would not generally be considered a CLD student while one that is African-American or Latino would almost always be considered as such. When it comes to educational diagnostician when working with or around CLD students, having a strong modicum of cultural competence and training is extremely important. The educational plans that are drawn up and executed on CLD students must be culturally appropriate and meaningful for the students involved and the cultures that they are familiar and comfortable with. This allows for educational diagnosticians and other special education professionals to be sufficiently responsive and properly reactive when it comes to the needs of CLD special education students, their parents and other stakeholders in the realm that is the student's life and educational experience. The process of teaching any special education student, whether CLD or not, needs to be seen as a journey and not just a destination as the process of learning for the student and the process of integration into society will far exceed what can be done in the elementary school setting (Povenmire et al., 2015; Greene, 2014).

One challenge for the special education field that has clearly shown itself is that there have been two different approaches and outcomes that have manifested themselves. This leads to the dilemma of which approach a special education professional should follow and why that choice is the proper one. The two tracks of practice that have occurred have come to be known as cultural deprivation, otherwise known as negative stigma, and that of learning disability, otherwise known as learning disability. Picking the right approach is loaded with implications and ramifications as there can be a great amount of guilt, agency involvement and so frith when it comes to the serving and catering to special education students. While the general verdict on the matter is far from monolithic, it is held by many that the culturally enriched and robust option is the far superior one and that children (elementary-level and beyond) that are the product of this approach are far better off than those that get the non-cultural approach that just focuses on the learning disability and does not loop in culture as a tool and legitimate part of the process that can and should exist (Katchergin, 2012). Something else that a trained and adept educational diagnostician should keep in mind when it comes to teaching and helping elementary school students with disability is the social and cultural capital that can be harnessed by partnering with the child's parents. Indeed, the parents….....

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