by Jim Mcfalls

Created on: February 11, 2008

Special education students should be held to the same codes of discipline as mainstream students HOWEVER they should not necessarily be held to the same consequences as mainstream students. The reason children become special education students is because they have been diagnosed as having specific cognitive, emotional and/or physical deficits that require special attention, teaching and clinical intervention.

A code of discipline is not intended to be an arbitrary code of conduct, but behavior that is expected to maintain order and the status quo. The need for this order and status quo doesn't diminish because a student is a special education student. This code, instead, becomes the target or goal for the special education student to aim for. It is the responsibility of teachers, administrators and parents to construct and implement an educational treatment plan that provides an appropriately structured environment, redirection to appropriate behaviors and reinforcement of behaviors that approximate behaviors expected by the code of discipline.

It is easier to visualize how to approach this issue if we use a physical disease analog. It is, for example, contrary to the code of discipline for a student to drop to the floor and flop around noisily. However, we interpret this scenario differently if we know the child doing this behavior has a seizure disorder. Having the seizure disorder doesn't make the behavior "ok'" it just makes it understandable. It leads teachers to approach this breach of discipline differently. Responses to this "breach" may be to seek an increase in seizure medication, check the "flicker rate" of the ambient lighting or the computer terminal, manage the stress situations the student is subject to, or make any number of other adjustments to the environment. Note that the "code of discipline" remains the same: it is not productive to have a student flopping around on the floor. What has to be changed is how we interpret what is happening and how we can ameliorate it.

In real life, switching back to the "behaviors" of special education students is more difficult to do. It is harder for teachers (and other students) to see the behaviors of emotionally impaired students in the same light as someone with a seizure disorder. The education of teachers and administrators in this regard remains the broadest gap to jump.

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