A STUDY ON INDIVIDUALIZED EDUCATION PROGRAM (IEP) OF SPECIAL EDUCATION IN U. S. A.

Abstract

In November of 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Acr (P. L. 94-142). The Act represents the most important legislation for the handicapped ever passed. With its passage, the United States committed itself to a nationalpurpose of assuring that a "free appropriate public education" would be available to all handicapped children. Thus, it requires that specialists are called upon evaluate the children's special needs and determine the most appropriate educational environment for them; that an individualized education program (IEP) is developed for each child identified as needing special education or related services; that the school districts notify parents of findings concerning their children and include parents in the process of making decisions regarding how and in what circumstances their children will be educated; and that an opportunity for a hearing is provided to a parent. The charactristics of the IEP in special education are as follows; 1) The IEP is the most important provision of P. L. 94-142, because the IEP includes of all essential elements for a free appropriate public education for all handicapped children in a least restrictive environment. 2) The IEP becomes more specific as its development moves toward actual Individualized Implementation Plan (IIP). 3) Each teacher should make more efforts to develop positive relationships with these parents by active and continued involvement of the parent in preparation of the IEP and in evaluation and monitoring of the child's progress. 4) It is important to reduce the amount of time required for IEP development, therefore it demands further improvement of teacher's paper work on IEP. 5) It is more likely that theschool district or the teacher will be held liable for a "educational malpractice" in teaching hadicapped child. We strongly expect to accomplish reaching goal of P. L. 94-142 by educating each handicapped child in accordance with Individualized Education Program.