The Characteristics Among Maltreatment, Special Education Service Delivery, and Personnel Preparation

Abstract

Children are experiencing abuse and neglect at alarming rates, and reported cases of maltreatment are increasing every year. Furthermore, children are 4 times more likely to receive special education services if they have experienced abuse and neglect. Multiple calls for action to better support children with special needs who have experienced maltreatment have been developed; however, we must understand what the research says related to the preparation of special education providers to carry out these recommendations. In this literature review, we focused on three areas related to maltreatment: (a) reported and assessed knowledge base of school-based professionals, (b) attitudes and training beliefs of school-based professionals, and (c) access to training opportunities. The findings suggest practitioners feel unprepared, there are limited and insufficient opportunities for preparation, and researchers need to consider different methodology when studying this topic. Practice and research implications are discussed.

Trauma-Informed Care: The Professional Development Needs of Early Childhood Special Education Teachers

“…First, findings indicate that while participants have some knowledge of trauma and trauma-informed care, participants are not fully prepared to support young children with disabilities who have experienced trauma. This article confirms the work of Miller (2018) and Miller and Santos (2020), which suggested that special education school staff members are unprepared to support children who have experienced trauma. This article extends on current work by providing explicit information as to what the professional development needs are of ECSE teachers in regard to implementing trauma-informed care.…”

“…First, findings indicate that while participants have some knowledge of trauma and traumainformed care, participants are not fully prepared to support young children with disabilities who have experienced trauma. This article confirms the work of Miller (2018) and Miller and Santos (2020), which suggested that special education school staff members are unprepared to support Second, participants in this study shared that they had attended training and professional development events about trauma and trauma-informed care, but that they covered introductory information. While this information is important, it was not enough for participants to change their day-to-day classroom practices.…”

“…The studies that have examined ECSE professionals found they do not feel prepared to implement trauma-informed care (Chudzik et al, 2022; Miller, 2018). Moreover, Miller and Santos (2020) found that professional development opportunities regarding trauma-informed care for special education teachers are lacking. Before additional training and interventions can be designed to support ECSE teachers in implementing trauma-informed care, we need to understand their current knowledge and areas of need.…”

Inclusive education as a trauma-responsive practice: research-based considerations and implications

“…As it was rightly pointed out by Graham and Slee (2008, 280) more than a decade ago, 'Perhaps the question now is not so much how do we move "towards inclusion" … but what do we do to disrupt the construction of centre from which exclusion derives?' Hence, an inclusive education reform agenda involves acknowledging and challenging the existence of this 'centre', and its exclusionary forces targeting, by and large, students who have been exposed to traumagenic events linked to social inequalities and human rights violations that triggered or contributed to the genesis and propagation of their 'disabilities' and 'special educational needs' Trauma as a precursor and consequence of disability and implications for trauma-informed inclusive policies and practices There is a wealth of empirical evidence documenting the ways in which trauma impairs children's brain and limbic development and creates or enhances the risk of developing disabilities and special educational needs, while exposure to trauma quadruples the likelihood of the affected child to receive special educational services (Miller and Santos 2020). Acute or cumulative traumatic events in a child's life can adversely affect, inter alia, executive functioning skills, memory, speech and language, language and auditory processing, ability to read, understand and manage emotions, ability to process verbal information, engage in mathematical and problem-solving activities.…”

“…Despite the existence of a significant body of research on the ways in which trauma can create, compound, and exacerbate disabilities and special educational needs, which began more than a decade ago and was widely endorsed by medical professionals, it is still the case that education policies do not 'recognize trauma as a source of or contributor to disability' (Tuchinda 2020, 815). While perspectives on inclusive education that highlight the imperative to use evidence-based pedagogical practices to meet the needs of students designated as having special educational needs and/or disabilities abound (e.g Mitchell 2014), empirically validated links between trauma and disability have not informed education theories, policies, and practices (Miller and Santos 2020;Tuchinda 2020;Winder 2015). Thus, even though inclusive education promulgates the imperative to precipitate ideological and organizational reforms to meet the needs of learner diversity, the traumagenic conditions that contribute to the emergence and exacerbation of these 'needs' have remained undertheorized.…”