Dimitris Anastasiou

The Social Model of Disability: Dichotomy between Impairment and Disability

The rhetoric of the social model of disability is presented, and its basic claims are critiqued. Proponents of the social model use the distinction between impairment and disability to reduce disabilities to a single social dimension-social oppression. They downplay the role of biological and mental conditions in the lives of disabled people. Consequences of denying biological and mental realities involving disabilities are discussed. People will benefit most by recognizing both the biological and the social dimensions of disabilities.

Difficulties in Lexical Stress versus Difficulties in Segmental Phonology among Adolescents with Dyslexia.

Dyslexic difficulties in lexical stress were compared to difficulties in segmental phonology. Twenty-nine adolescents with dyslexia and 29 typically developing adolescents, matched on age and nonverbal ability, were assessed on reading, spelling, phonological and stress awareness, rapid naming, and short-term memory. Group differences in stress assignment were larger than in segmental phonology in reading and spelling pseudowords but not words, indicating a fragility of explicit processes that manipulate stress representations. Despite impaired stress performance in dyslexia at the group level, individual variability failed to reveal evidence for a stress-specific deficit or for a distinct stress-impaired subgroup.

Cross-National Differences in Special Education Coverage An Empirical Analysis

This study investigated the role of educational and socioeconomic factors in explaining differences in national special education coverage. Data were derived from several international and governmental sources, targeting the year 2008 and covering 143 countries. Descriptive statistics revealed huge disparities in access to special education among countries. Using a theoretical model linking socioeconomic and educational variables to differences in how many students receive special education at a national level and structural equation modeling, the authors evaluated the relationships among the variables. The structural equation model showed that gross national income per capita, adult literacy rate, educational variables, and expected years of formal schooling accounted for 77.3% of the variance in special education coverage, and that the contributions of gross national income per capita and adult literacy were unique and significantly important. The implications for special education and inclusion policy and research are discussed.

Disability in Multicultural Theory: Conceptual and Social Justice Issues

Multicultural theorists in education tend to treat disability as part of cultural diversity and apply a minority group model to disability rights. We critically examine the fundamental presuppositions and social justice issues behind this assimilation of disability into a multicultural frame of reference. The implications of the neutralization of disability are discussed. Reasons for reconciling different views of special education and multicultural education to better achieve social justice are detailed. Policy implications of noting the differences between people with disabilities and minority groups are suggested.

Inclusive education in Italy: description and reflections on full inclusion

Inclusion of students with disabilities when appropriate is an important goal of special education for students with special needs. Full inclusion, meaning no education for any child in a separate setting, is held to be desirable by some, and Italy is likely the nation with an education system most closely approximating full inclusion on the continuum of inclusiveness. The legal background of inclusion in Italy is sketched, along with description of some of the problems in implementing its nearly fully inclusive system of education. It is suggested that appropriate educational response to specific special needs of children with disabilities should be seen as more important than uncritical inclusion; and that such educational response requires a continuum of placement options.

Special Education at the Crossroad: An Identity Crisis and the Need for a Scientific Reconstruction

ABSTRACT Special education is losing its identity—its visibility, distinctiveness, budget, and basic functions are all at risk. Special education functions include (a) sorting, categorizing, and labeling students who need it; (b) making the right comparisons; (c) honoring diversity but changing particular differences; (d) managing stigma; (e) making subjective judgments and risking errors; (f) dealing with students’ failures; and (g) adequate financing in addition to maintaining visibility and status and having its own budget and personnel. It cannot exist without these functions, all of which are criticized or on the decline. Special education must also be reconstructed on the basis of sound science, not alternative narratives or nonscientific ways of knowing that do not help students with disabilities learn all they can. The need for a scientific reconstruction and implications for special education’s future are discussed.

The Relationships of Socioeconomic Factors and Special Education with Reading Outcomes across PISA Countries

This study investigates the multivariate relationships among socioeconomic factors, special education coverage (SEC), and reading across countries participating in the Program for International Stu...

The influence of the school hygiene and paedology movement on the early development of special education in Greece, 1900–1940: the leading role of Emmanuel Lambadarios

This study focuses on the contribution of Emmanuel Lambadarios to special education in Greece in the early twentieth century. It examines Lambadarios’s involvement in special education, culminating in the establishment of the ‘Model Special School of Athens’ (PESA), the first public special education school for children with intellectual disabilities. It specifically explores Lambadarios’s key perceptions of the education of children with disabilities influenced by his medical-centred school hygiene and paedological views, studied within the broader international context of the first four decades of the twentieth century. This is an attempt to shed light on an unknown aspect of the early history of special education in Greece, which appears to be influenced by medicine. Moreover, the latent rivalry between the physician Emmanuel Lambadarios and the educator/head teacher of the PESA, Rosa Imvrioti, indicates an educational resistance to the attempted medicalisation of the early development of special education.

A reply to the EJSNE symposium’s respondents

We thank the respondents for their efforts. Given our limited space (about 500 words), we opt for general replies to over 5000 words of the respondents. Our primary aim was to present data related ...