School Housing— for physically handicapped children MANY PHYSICALLY handicapped children in the United States are not in schools simply because special schools or classes or special facilities in regular classes are not available to them in their home districts. Some who could attend day schools if special classes or services were available are receiving instruction at home, a plan which should be used only as a last resort for, at best, it is a limited kind of school experience. Some boys and girls are in hospitals where little or no schooling is provided. Thousands of other children with physical limitations are in regular schools that are not equipped to provide them with the special services they need if they are to develop in accordance with their capacities. Lack of adequate and suitable school housing is one of the reasons that this condition exists. NEED FOR MORE ADEQUATE SCHOOL PROVISIONS Education of physically handicapped children in the United States is a part of the broad program for the education of exceptional children. The term "exceptional" includes the various types of physically handicapped, the socially handicapped and emotionally disturbed, the mentally handicapped, and the mentally gifted. It has been conservatively estimated that in the United States there are between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 children of school age who are so exceptional as to need some special adjustment in their school programs, one of which is school housing, if they are to attain optimum development. According to 1947-48 statistics. (covering both day and residential schools) compiled by the Office of Education, only 10 to 15 percent of the number of exceptional children estimated to be in need of special education are receiving the attention they should have. This bulletin is concerned with school housing for physically handicapped children -the group which constitutes approximately half of the exceptional children. While a few communities have provided model buildings or classrooms-beautiful and well equipped for physically handicapped children-by far the larger number of school districts do not have classrooms or other school plant facilities to serve handicapped children adequately. In new buildings and in remodeled old ones, provision should be made to meet the needs of handicapped children. It is perhaps even more necessary to provide appropriate school housing for handicapped children than for so-called normal children. The presence or absence of needed facilities in a classroom or school building may be so significant as to determine whether or not a child with a serious handicap will be enrolled in or excluded from the school. Some limitation in the school plant may, for example, become the actual reason for assignment to home instruction. rather than to a special class. Many children with vision and hearing impairments both in the elementary grades and in the high school are in schoolrooms where the seeing conditions and the acoustic properties are not adequate for their needs. Under such circumstances, they cannot make optimum use of the vision or hearing they have. 1 Physically handicapped are: Crippled by such conditions as infantile paralysis, cerebral palsy, or accident; blind or partially seeing; deaf or hard-of-hearing; cardiopathic; speech-defective; or handicapped by health conditions, such as epilepsy, diabetes, tuberculosis, and malnutrition. The carriage porch provides protection from weather as children enter and leave school. While the more seriously handicapped children need special classes, a much larger number of handicapped children of all ages could be in regular classrooms if the schools generally had the special housing features to accommodate them. Many pupils of high-school age, for example, have improved physically or they have equipped themselves with special abilities such as lip reading or Braille so they could attend regular high schools with certain assistance. States Help Meet The Need Under present legislation, many State departments of education can allocate funds to aid local school systems in providing needed facilities for exceptional children in local school districts. Residential schools which constitute an essential part of the special education program serve some of these children. This bulletin is written with the day school program in mind, but many of the ideas and suggestions apply to the education of children in residential schools. Nothing, of course, will be said. concerning dormitory or custodial provisions. The need for a good instructional program is the same wherever the the children are: in day schools or in residential schools. The total environment of the school in either case should contribute, not only to the intellectual development, but also to the physical, social, emotional, and personal well-being of each child. Insofar as these goals of education are concerned, they are again the same no matter where or how the child is educated. However, as effort is being made increasingly to serve every educable child, much of the load must be carried by the local schools. As the States and local communities enlarge their programs of special education, more and more attention will undoubtedly be given to the features of local school buildings which make them functional for handicapped children. This leads to the question: How can these specialized building requirements be determined? The answer will depend upon both the need of children and the resources of the community. Whether provisions are to be made for hundreds of children or for 10 children or perhaps even for 2 or 3 children, both the needs of children and the resources of the community must be considered. The school building needs of exceptional children cannot and should not be met in just one way. Each community must decide how it can most effectively organize classes and special services for children with handicaps. Large cities have many handicapped children to plan for. Several of these cities maintain special schools solely for such children; others provide centers in regular schools, usually in elementary schools. For small cities and towns with limited numbers of such boys and girls, the large special school is not the answer to the problem. The center of special classes or the single multigrade class seem to be meeting with increasing favor in such communities. Needs of children are as 948607-52-2 great in sparsely populated areas as in the cities. To what extent and in what manner these conditions can be met are matters that each community must determine. Some educators today believe that all classrooms for exceptional children should be in a regular school. Some people advocate this arrangement whether one or more special classes are involved. In cities and in thickly populated areas, a choice must be made as to the type of organization which will be most effective in each community. The plan should be adopted which will give children the opportunity for the best possible all-round development. A few communities will be fortunate enough to have funds to construct new buildings or centers in buildings ideally planned to provide classrooms and special services, such as space for speech training, physical therapy, clinical care, rest and lunchrooms. In many communities, however, school administrators will think in terms of remodeling and reconditioning old buildings and classrooms. No administrator should be discouraged if he is unable to build a new building either partly or entirely for handicapped children. Children can still be served in rooms or buildings of regular schools especially if these are adequately reconditioned. Teamwork In Planning When a new school building is to be erected or when an old one is to be reconditioned, those who are to use the quarters should help in the planning. Because of the specialized services to be rendered in schools, centers, or classes for handicapped children, group planning is especially valuable. Many mistakes can be avoided, and the facilities can be made more functional when school administrators, teachers, physicians, school board members, parents, and architects sit down together and discuss the activities that are to go on in the rooms. The architect makes the final plans, but he can design a more satisfactory school plant if he confers not only with school administrators, but also with classroom teachers, physicians, therapists, attendants, and other personnel regularly employed in the organization. All of these people can help him visualize the kinds of special activities that will go on in the school. They can indicate something about general space requirements. They can also help the architect decide where to put special features, such as storage space, electrical outlets, and rooms for special services. For example, an architect without advice might be uncertain as to where he should place the physical therapy room in a school or center for crippled children. Teachers and therapists can help him decide. They will know where the children will be most of the time, what passages they will travel most often, how many professional people, attendants, or volunteers will be on duty to assist the children. |