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This paper gives an overview of the main conclusions and recommendations of the Agency analysis on the topic of Multicultural Diversity and Special Needs Education. It highlights how the project recommendations may also contribute to other European Union (EU) and international policy priorities. In the area of special needs education, practitioners, researchers and decision-makers at EU and national levels have shown a growing interest in the situation of learners with SEN from an immigrant background. In particular, there is a concern that these learners from different cultural backgrounds experience multiple disadvantages in education. For more information, refer to the Multicultural Diversity and Special Needs Education project area. Download the policy paper as a PDF in English below. ; This publication has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

The analysis of the legislative regulation which determines the rights of children with special needs and regulates their guarantee leads to the conclusion that, on the one hand, defining equal rights to all children to receive education but failing to ensure these rights to children with special needs in a place that is as much as possible close to their dwelling place, their rights to live in the family, to choose education that corresponds to their desire as well as the possibility to socialize with children who have no special needs are violated. Why such statements? They are based on the analysis of the legislative acts of the Republic of Latvia and the education possibilities offered by the municipalities.

ABSTRACTThere are thousands of residents with disabilities in Jordan. Despite national legislation to assure individuals with disabilities needed services, including education and employment, social inclusion of these individuals is difficult since societal views exclude them from functioning as members of a community. While there are no national studies of the dental needs of individuals with disabilities in Jordan, local reports indicates limited use of dental services and the need for increased oral hygiene and restorative services. Examples of dental education accreditation standards in other countries are used as models for the improvement in the preparation of dental students to provide services for individuals with special needs.

Abstract: Because of changes in legislation and policies regarding child welfare, increasing numbers of older children are being placed for adoption. Many of these children are defined as having "special needs" and include children who are at risk for physical, emotional, or behavioral problems. We use Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory as a framework to review the literature regarding child and family adjustment to adoption, with particular emphasis on special needs adoptions. We include recommendations for improvements in pre‐ and post‐adoption intervention services based on an ecological model.

AbstractThis article reports on a two‐part pilot project in which a conflict education program and a peer mediation program were implemented in a special needs population to reduce students' aggressive behaviors and improve the school's climate. The participating school was an approved private school to which students (ages five through twenty‐one) with learning disability (LD), emotional disability (ED), or attention deficit‐hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were referred from public education institutions unequipped to provide necessary services. The project is discussed in terms of needs assessment, program development and implementation, and insights for training with a special needs population. Research was conducted to ascertain the impact of conflict education training on incidents of aggressive behavior and school climate. Results indicate a significant reduction in the most serious behavioral incidents during the project period, as well as a slight increase in moderately serious incidents and a sharp increase in nonserious incidents. A decrease in the frequency of fights among younger students and a significant improvement in school climate were also apparent.

The use of virtual reality for learning, training, and rehabilitation for people with special needs has been on the rise in recent years. Virtual reality allows the user to be trained, to gather information and to perform rehabilitation tasks in the virtual reality space. It allows the user to perform independently, safely, and efficiently, in a combined product of sensory, motor, and cognitive skills. The design, development, and evaluation of such virtual reality environments is a multidisciplinary work, the integration of medicine, physical therapy, occupational therapy, neuroscience, psych

Designs for Digitalised Literacy Education in a Swedish Lower Primary School The aim of this article is to contribute knowledge about challenges to literacy development in a digitalised learning environment, with focus on pupils in need of special support. The paper is based on a section of my doctoral thesis (Forsling, 2017), centring on how digital learning environments and situations were designed and orchestrated in a Swedish lower primary school with the aim to provide all pupils, including children in need of special support, with optimal opportunities for literacy development.The theoretical and methodological framework is grounded in design-oriented theories, with emphasis on how design and orchestration make affordances for learning and meaning-making. The ethnographically inspired study is based on observations and interviews at one school in Sweden. Six teachers, one special needs teacher and one literacy-developer participated in the study.The results show that the teachers' intentions with their designs for learning focused on children in need of special support. From a special education perspective, this is a relational and democratic approach – an intention to close gaps. Nevertheless, the results manifest a parallelism where two special education perspectives appeared side by side. On one hand, the teachers' relational perspective, and on the other hand, the special need teachers' compensatory perspective.Another result indicates that the unequal allocation of digital tools displayed the school's inadequate fulfilment of its mandate to provide equal education: there were differences between the preschool-class and the lower primary classes, and differences between pupils' home circumstances and the preschool-class.