The IDEA Act Was Passed to Aid and Support Students

The IDEA act was passed to aid and support students who struggled in the classroom understanding the concepts like the rest of the students. According to IDEA (2020) in 2004 this law was passed however its content was based on a previous law originated in 1975 known as “the education for all handicapped children act” (IDEA, 2020). This law basically requires that all educational services grant equal access to education to all students covering ages birth to twenty-one years old) (IDEA, 2020).

Individuals with Disabilities Education Act has six core principles, these principles include zero reject, Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), Nondiscriminatory Evaluation, Parent & Family Rights to Confidentiality.

There are two major principles of the IDEA act; first, a specific part of this law demand schools to create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each student who has found to have an eligible disability this document is to be agreed upon by teachers, parents, specialists and the student (if possible).

Another part of the IDEA act is that students are educated in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), where students with disabilities can learn in the same classroom with non-disable peers having the same access to education and interaction with peers like anyone else (IDEA, 2020).

There are thirteen categories of disabilities that IDEA covers, they are: “autism”, “deaf-blindness”, “deafness”, “emotional disturbance”, “hearing impairment”, “intellectual disability”, “multiple disabilities”, “orthopedic impairment”, “other health impairment (includes ADHD), specific learning disability (dyslexia, dyscalculia, dysgraphia, and other learning differences)”, “speck or language impairment, traumatic brain injury, visual impairment (including blindness)” (Swenson, 2018). The disability alone will not be reason enough for an individual to be covered by this law, the child must have a disability and as a result of that disability need special education to make progress in school (Lee, 2020).

Learning disabilities are known to be a group of neurological disorders distinguished by difficulty learning, sorting, and storing information. Individuals with learning disabilities might have difficulties with listening to other individuals, speaking or maintaining social relations, reading, writing, reasoning, or performing mathematical calculations (Help guide, 2020).

In the classroom, the instructor should use and take advantage of the individual’s strengths instead of focusing on his disability, each approach and treatment should be tailored to the child’s needs. LDA (2020) mentioned some strategies that could be used when helping individuals with dyscalculia, for example, using colored pencils to differentiate problems, use graph paper, allow peers to be involved and providing assistance, work with manipulatives, use fingers and scratch paper, draw pictures of word problems to focus on the visual and release the anxiety the words might provide, use mnemonic devices to learn the required math steps, use music to teach math facts for example multiplications songs (LDA, 2020).

Dyslexia: the core deficit of this learning disability roots from problems decoding (being able to break a word into parts rapidly enough to read the whole word), when the individual is unable to detect the phonological structure of language and recognize a word, it is expected for the reading development to be impaired (Mash, 2006). As mentioned before each child should have their treatment and approach tailored to meet their needs, however, LDA (2020) has the following suggestion to apply as strategies when aiding children with Dyslexia learning disabilities: quiet areas are often encouraged when teaching or encouraging an individual to read, use books on tape (visuals), allow alternatives forms for book reports (such as comics, drawings, poems, etc.), allow the student to use laptops or other computers in-class essays to encourage the reading comprehension and ease the writing struggles, use multi-sensory teaching methods, compress the material presented in small units to avoid overwhelming the student LDA (2020).

When children grow into adulthood with an undiagnosed learning disability, their social like can be compromised, for example, their career choice can be affected, the individual job advancement can be also compromised, their psychological and emotional issues (feelings of self-worth, self-esteem) can lead to depression since they might feel embarrassed and shamed for their intellectual deficiency (Cicerchia, 2020). There is a detrimental impact on self-perception since most of these individuals suffer from depression and anxiety as a primary condition (Waterworth, 2010).