History of Special Education in the Philippines Historical perspective of inclusive education in the Philippines

(1926-1949)
Children born with disabilities were the source of shame and guilt among
families. • In 1926 The Philippine Association for the Deaf was founded.
• In 1945 The National Orthopedic Hospital opened its School for
The stigmatization of disability resulted in the social and economic
Crippled Children for young patients who had been hospitalized for
marginalization like many other oppressed minorities, left people with
long period of time.
disabilities in a severe state of impoverishment for centuries.
• In 1949, Quezon City Science High School for gifted students was
In the 1800s, people with disabilities were considered tragic, pitiful inaugurated.
individuals unfit and unable to contribute to society, except to serve as • In the same year, Philippine Foundation for Rehabilitation of the
ridiculed objects of entertainment in circuses and exhibitions Disabled (PFRD) was organized.

It was in 1975 when public schools to guarantee a free, appropriate public Historical perspective of inclusive education in the Philippines
education to students with disabilities however the inclusion of individuals (1950-1975)
with special needs was considered by many educators to be of questionable
• In 1957, Special Education Section of Special Subject and Services
worth, a drag on teachers' time and an intrusion—a threat to the status quo
Division was created.
(West, 2000).
• In 1960, some private college and universities started to offer special
In the 1980, children with disability had an access and equal treatment. The education courses in the graduate school curriculum.
legislation ensured that all students are guaranteed an education that is not • In 1965, marked the start of the training programs for school
only accessible, but also free, appropriate, timely, non-discriminatory, administrators on the organization, administration and supervision of
meaningful, measureable, and provided in the least-restrictive setting. special education.
• In 1970, training for teachers for children with behavioral problems
Overview of Special Education in the Philippines
started in the University of the Philippines.
R.A 7277 Sec.12 “state shall take into consideration the special requirements
of disabled person in the formulation of educational policies and programs.”
Historical perspective of inclusive education in the Philippines
• In 2010, Census of Population and Housing, of the 92.1 million (1976-2000)
household population in the country, 1.57 percent had disability.
• In 1977, MEC issued Department Order No. 10 that designated
• In response to this reported data, the Department of Health
regional and division supervisors of special education program.
mandated to come up with a national health program for PWD as
• In 1978, MEC directed school division to organize special classes with
based on R.A. 7277.
a set of guidelines on the designation of teachers who have no formal
• In 2013, a Medium Term Strategic Plan was developed to strengthen
training in special education. In the same year University of the
the existing health program for PWD’s.
Philippines opened its special education teacher training program for
• The World Health Organization released the “Global Disability Action
undergraduate students.
Plan 2014-20021 which intend to help countries direct their efforts
• In 1982, special schools were opened.
towards specific action in order to address health concerns of PWD’s.
• In 1998, DECS ordered “Reclassification of Regular Teachers and
Principal Items to Special Education Teacher”

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Legal Bases of Special Education State shall design systems and procedures that will enable persons with
disabilities and senior citizens to register and vote by themselves."
DepEd Order No. 46, S. 2014 - Guidelines on the Implementation of the
Alternative Learning System for Persons with Disability (ALS for PWD) Republic Act 10070- or Accessible Implementation of Programs and Services
Program. for Person with Disabilities in every province, city and municipality – The
local chief executive shall appoint a PWD affairs officer who shall manage and
DepEd Order No. 38, S. 2015 - Guidelines on the Utilization of Support Funds oversee the operations of the office, pursuant to its mandate under this Act."
for the Special Education (SPED) Program.
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DepEd Order No. 85, S. 2011 - Amendment to DepEd Order No. 69, s. 2011
Guidelines on Sustaining Special Education at the Elementary Level. Introduction to Inclusive Education
DepEd Order No. 53, S. 2008 - Maximization of Trained Teachers and Inclusion is a right, not a privilege for a select few
Administrators in Special Education. - JUDGE GEARY
DepEd Order No. 26, S. 1997 - DO 26, s. 1997 - Institutionalization of SPED RIGHT – It is a moral entitlement.
Programs in All Schools.
PRIVILEGE – It is an advantage or immunity granted on to a particular person
Republic Act No. 10627 or Anti- Bullying Act – “Bullying shall refer to any or a group.
severe or repeated use by one or more students of a written, verbal or
electronic expression, or a physical act or gesture, or any combination thereof, Inclusive Education
directed at another student that has the effect of actually causing or placing
• Inclusive education specifically focuses on inclusion in education and
the latter in reasonable fear of physical or emotional harm or damage to his
educational institutions. The two most fundamental concerns in
property; creating a hostile environment at school for the other student;
education today are:
infringing on the rights of the other student at school; or materially and
1. The quest for excellence in teaching
substantially disrupting the education process or the orderly operation of a
2. The intensive effort to offer equal opportunities for all learners
school.”

Republic Act No. 10524 or An Equal Opportunity Employment – At least one • The fundamental principle of the inclusive school is that all children
percent (1%) of all positions in all government agencies, offices or should learn together, wherever possible, regardless of any
corporations shall be reserved for persons with disability: Provided, that difficulties or differences they may have.
private corporations with more than one hundred (100) employees are • Inclusive schools must recognize and respond to the diverse needs of
encouraged to reserve at least one percent (1%) of all positions for persons their students, accommodating both different styles and rates of
with disability.” learning and ensuring quality education to all through appropriate
curricula, organizational arrangements, teaching strategies, resource
Republic Act No. 10336 or Accessible Polling Places Exclusively for Persons
use and partnerships with their communities.
with Disability and Senior Citizens – “The State shall ensure that persons with
disabilities and senior citizens are able to exercise their right to political
participation without discrimination or restrictions. Towards this end, the

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Inclusive schools must recognize and respond to the diverse needs of their Basic Elements of Inclusive Education
students…
Use Of Teaching Assistants or Specialists
▪ Accommodating both different styles and rates of learning and
ensuring quality education to all through appropriate curricula • These staff have the potential to be inclusive or divisive. A specialist
▪ Organizational arrangements who pulls students out of class to work with them individually on a
▪ Teaching strategies regular basis.
▪ Resource use and partnerships with their communities
Inclusive Curriculum
• An inclusive curriculum includes locally relevant themes and
Inclusive education values diversity and the unique contributions each contributions by marginalized and minority groups.
student brings to the classroom. • It avoids binary narratives of good and bad and allows adapting the
curriculum to the learning styles of children with special education
In a truly inclusive setting, every child feels safe and has a sense of belonging.
needs.
Students and their parents participate in setting learning goals and take part
Parental Involvement
in decisions that affect them.
• Most schools strive for some level of parental involvement, but it is
And school staff have the training, support, flexibility, and resources to
often limited to emails home and occasional parent–teacher
nurture, encourage, and respond to the needs of all students.
conferences.
Why is it important? • In a diverse school system, inclusion means thinking about multiple
ways to reach out to parents on their own terms.
• Inclusive systems provide a better-quality education for all children • Diverse – showing a great deal of variety.
and are instrumental in changing discriminatory attitudes.
• Schools provide the context for a child’s first relationship with the How can we advance Inclusive Education?
world outside their families, enabling the development of social
To make inclusive education a reality we need to do the following:
• relationships and interactions.
• Education that excludes and segregates perpetuates discrimination ✓ Ensure that educators have the training, flexibility, and resources to
against traditionally marginalized groups. teach students with diverse needs and learning styles.
✓ Empower parents to assert their children’s right to education in
inclusive settings.
WHEN EDUCATION IS MORE INCLUSIVE, SO ARE CONCEPTS OF CIVIC
✓ Ensure that kindergartens and schools receive adequate and
PARTICIPATION, EMPLOYMENT, AND COMMUNITY LIFE. ✓ sustainable financial support so that all activities and services are fully
inclusive.
✓ Hold governments accountable for implementing anti-discrimination
legislation, legal mandates for inclusion, and policies to remove
barriers.

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History of Special Education JACOB RODRIGUES PEREIRA (1715-1780)
17TH CENTURY • Introduce the idea that person who were deaf could be taught to
communicate.
• They are called idiots and insane.
• Developed the early form of sign language.
• Children were put in asylums-no categories.
• Jacob Rodrigues Pereira or Jacob Rodrigue Péreire was a Portuguese
• No education or intervention. Jewish educator and academic. He was the first teacher of deaf
18th CENTURY patients in France.

• Effective procedures were developed for teaching children with EDUARD SEGUIN (1812-1880)
sensory impairments. • A French physician responsible for developing teaching method with
• Programs for the blind and the deaf. mental retardation.
19TH CENTURY • Edouard Seguin was a doctor who stepped out of the box and did
something others thought was hopeless: educating the intellectually
• First systematic attempts were made to educate the idiotic and the disabled. Seguin was a 19th-century French-born American
insane- mental retardation and emotional/ behavioral problems. neurologist, and the first who founded a school for “idiots” called
Seguin Physiological School.
20TH CENTURY
MARIA MONTESSORI
• Recognition of children and people with exceptionalities
• Establishing the rights of disability. • Her career began as physician, and she spent her life with children
• Creation of laws and legislation for the care and protection of with disabilities.
exceptional children. • Created sensorial materials.
• Creation of specific educational programs for exceptionalities. • Gave emphasis on task analysis, individualization and introduced
• Mainstreaming and inclusion. “prepared environment”
• A Montessori classroom places an emphasis on hands-on learning
and developing real-world skills. It emphasizes independence and it
Significant People in the Field of Special Education
views children as naturally eager for knowledge and capable of
PHILLIPE PINEL (1745-1826) initiating learning in a sufficiently supportive and well-prepared
learning environment.
• A French physician who was concerned with the humanitarian
treatment of individual with mental illness.
• Philippe Pinel is often considered the "Father of Modern Psychiatry."
He is most famous for his humane treatment of the mentally ill, as
well as his contributions to the diagnosis and treatment of mental
disorders. His work paved the way for modern psychotherapy.

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SAMUEL GRIDELY HOWE (1801-1916) THOMAS GALLAUDET
• An American physician who was known for his success in teaching • He taught children with hearing impairments to communicate via a
individuals with visual and hearing impairment. system of manual signs and symbols.
• Best remembered as an educational innovator for the blind and • Thomas Gallaudet played a major role in advocating for the education
deaf; a reformer for the humane treatment of the mentally ill, and an of the deaf in the United States. Without his involvement, this
advocate for the integration of blacks during and after the Civil War, movement would have not evolved as quickly. His work was also
Samuel Gridley Howe (1801-1876) pursued philanthropic causes instrumental in the creation of American Sign Language, now widely
throughout his lifetime. used throughout the United States and the world.

LOUIS BRAILLE (1809 – 1852) ALFRED BINET (1857- 1911)

• A French educator who himself was blind and developed a tactile • Intelligence can be measured and can be improved through
system of reading and writing based on code or six raised dots. education.
• He is considered to be the inventor of a writing system by touch that • Authored the first developmental assessment scale capable of
bears his name, the Braille system. This revolutionary system has quantifying intelligence.
allowed blind people to access written culture, and it can therefore • Alfred Binet (early 1900s) is known as the man who created the first
be considered a major advance in the quality of life for the blind. intelligence test in the form we know them today. He is commonly
known as the father of IQ testing.
FRANCIS GALTON (1822-1911)
LEWIS TERMAN (1877- 1956)
• A scientist concerned with individual differences.
Genius is solely the result of heredity- born not made. • He revised Binet’s original assessment instrument and developed the
• His studies led him to support a new field called eugenics, whose notion of intelligence quotient.
main idea is to improve the overall pool of human genetics through • Lewis M. Terman often carries the moniker "Father of Gifted
selective breeding. He advocated allowing only select people to have Education". An appreciation and knowledge of Terman's early
children. Many of Galton's philosophical ideas have since been influences and his life course provides a window into his approach to
proved erroneous. For example, success depends not only on talent gifted education, the identification of gifted children, and approach
or aptitudes inherited through genetics, but also through effort and to their education.
chance.
ANNA FREUD
ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL
• Contributed the techniques of psychoanalysis can be applied to
• Children who are with hearing handicapped can learn to speak and children with emotional or behavioral problems
can use their limited hearing if amplified. • She was an Austrian-born British founder of child psychoanalysis and
• Alexander Graham Bell was a major advocate for teaching deaf one of its foremost practitioners. She also made fundamental
children to speak and lipread, a movement known as oralism. He was contributions to understanding how the ego, or consciousness,
a pioneer in this field and his efforts changed how deaf children were functions in averting painful ideas, impulses, and feelings.
taught.

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ALFRED STRAUSS ✓ Other Health Impairment
✓ Serious emotional disturbance
• He saw that children show unique patterns of learning disabilities due ✓ Specific learning Disability
to brain injury. ✓ Speech or language Impairment
• Alfred Strauss, along with his colleagues Laura Lehtinen and Newell ✓ Traumatic brain injury
Kephart, created the diagnostic category of minimal brain damage in ✓ Visual Impairment
children. He presumed that children with learning difficulties, who ✓ Gifted or talented
were not mentally retarded, hearing impaired, or emotionally
disturbed, had minimal brain damage. Disability

SAMUEL KIRT • Refers to the inability of an individual to do something in a certain

way;
• Optimizing young children interaction with the environment to • An incapacity to perform as other individuals due to impairment in
accelerate intellectual development. sensory, physical, cognitive and other areas of functioning.
• Kirk's commitment to students with learning disabilities led to • A person is not handicapped unless the physical disability leads to
the founding of the first-ever Institute for Research on Exceptional education, personal, social, and other problems.
Children more than 50 years ago, and a lasting foundation for today's
special education department. Handicap

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Refers to the problems that an individual with a disability encounters

as he or she attempts to function or interact in his environment;
What is Special education? • This term is used when explaining the consequences or impact
• It is individually planned, systematically implemented and carefully imposed on the individual by his or her disability.
evaluated instruction to help exceptional children achieve the • Refers to the problems a person with disability or impairment
greatest personal self-sufficiency and success in present and future encounters in interacting with the environment.
environments. • This term is more restrictive than exceptional does not include gifted
• It can be differentiated from regular education by its curriculum. and talented children.
• The child’s individual needs dictate the curriculum. At Risk
• Some exceptional children are taught certain skills to reduce
handicapping effects of disability. • Children who have not formally identified as having a disability but
who may be developing conditions that will limit their success in
Classification of Exceptionalities school or lead to disabilities;
✓ Autism • This term is often used with the very young who, because of negative
✓ Deafness conditions surrounding their birth.
✓ Deaf-Blindness • Nurturing or environment, may be expected to experience
✓ Hearing Impairment developmental problems.
✓ Mental Retardation • At-risk children include children who are experiencing learning
✓ Orthopedic Impairment and Multiple Disabilities socialization and maturational difficulties in the regular classroom.

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Factors Placing Young Children At-Risk for Developmental Problems: Comparison of regular and special education:

Prenatal Factors REGULAR SPECIAL

ADMISSION ▪ Tests ▪ Recommendation
✓ Maternal alcohol and drug abuse
▪ Readiness Need
✓ Children born by a teenage mother or women over 40 ▪ Standard
✓ Home environment lacking adequate stimulation CURRICULUM ▪ Set ▪ Child-centered
✓ Maternal diabetes hypertension or toxemia ▪ Deped ▪ Individualized
✓ Exposure to rubella prescribed Development
✓ Chronic poverty ▪ Knowledge
✓ Primary caregiver is developmentally disabled based
✓ Oxygen deprivation CLASSROOM SET UP ▪ Ration of one ▪ Ration is one on
✓ Child abuse and neglect teacher to one teaching
✓ Accident and head trauma many
✓ Inadequate maternal and infant nutrition MATERIALS ▪ Teacher’s ▪ Sensorial and
✓ Genetic disorder such as down syndrome made manipulative
✓ Family history of congenital abnormalities ▪ Technology
Enhanced
✓ Exposure to radiation
▪ Concrete and
✓ Prematurity
real objects
✓ Low birth weight
TEACHERS ▪ Area of ▪ SPED Experts
✓ Ingestion of poison and toxic substance by the child expertise in ▪ Caters child
the subject individual needs
▪ Gives ▪ Assess
All children differ from one another in individual characteristics, they information ▪ Shape Behavior
are unique individuals who required attention, nurturing and caring. ▪ Evaluates by ▪ WHAT, HOW,
giving test WHEN
▪ WHAT the
child learns
EVALUATION ▪ Grading ▪ Narrative reports
system ▪ Assess all areas of
number or learning
letter ▪ No grades
▪ Based on test
▪ Subject
METHOD ▪ Lecture based ▪ Small group or
on lesson individualized
▪ Mastery of ▪ Use a lot of
knowledge modes of
▪ Memorization learning and

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 ▪ Test and drills manipulative
materials
(multisensory)

Disability as part of diversity. The uniqueness of each one is the root of

diversity.

Greek word: “divertere”, which means to turn away, separate oppose

Collins dictionary – “the state or quality of being different or varied”

The inclusion of people with different races, genders, religion etc. in a group.

UNESCO 2017 – people’s differences which may relate to their race,

ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, language, culture, religion, mental and
physical ability, class and immigration status.

Visible differences

• Physical characteristics. - color of the skin, color of hair, shape of The Diversity Wheel gives an overview of the dimensions of diversity that are
eyes, nose, height, weight, gender, age, socio-economic class, present and active in one's workplace or environment. It consists of four
occupation. layers of diversity (personality, internal, external and organizational levels)
through which stimuli, information and experience are processed by all of us.
Invisible differences Feb 14, 2024
• Beliefs, mindset, values, sexual identity, intelligence, personality.
Ability (and Disabilty) as a dimension of Diversity

• Collins Dictionary: Definition of 'ability'1. possession of the qualities

LODEN’s diversity wheel
required to do something, necessary skill, competence, or power. the
Diversity Wheel ability to cope with a problem. 2. considerable proficiency; natural
capability.
The representation of all our varied identities and differences (race,
WHO – Disability as the umbrella term for impairments, activity limitations
ethnicity, gender, disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, national
and participation restrictions, referring to the negative aspects of the
origin, tribe, caste, socio-economic status, thinking and communication
interaction between an individual (with a health condition) and the individual
styles, etc.), collectively and as individuals.
contextual factors (environmental and personal factors)

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The definition underscores that disability is not only a health issue but also
an issue that affects a person’s state in life and the environment he/she in.

A person’s self-identity and perspectives of the world around him are

affected by both ability and disability

The American Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA)

Defines a person with disability as a person who has physical or mental

impairment that is substantially limits one or more major life activity.

The Dilemma of DIVERSITY

Discrimination

Ex. Muslims have been taken aside in immigration and interrogated

Non-married and same sex couples are still not accepted in some parts of
the world.

In school – children with special needs are shunned with the reason that
they are not yet ready for school or are not suited for school.