This special issue, ‘Higher Educational Opportunities for Students with Special Education Needs’, was a team effort. We would like to thank Seamus Hegarty, EJSNE editor, for inviting us to serve as guest editors and for his generous support throughout this process. We also thank the EJSNE Editorial Board for sharing their thoughts on this work and especially Jane Seale and Jean Jacques Detraux for their dedication and insight which helped bring this to fruition.
The purpose of this special issue is to provide current information on higher educational opportunities and challenges for students with special educational needs. To achieve this, we have gathered an outstanding set of articles and short reports that reflect some of the best thinking from around the world: exploring the strengths and needs of students with disabilities and examining the infrastructure (i.e. policies, practices and personnel preparation) required to support their success within higher education.
The special issue opens with a comprehensive review, ‘Inclusive Education in Higher Education: Challenges and Opportunities’ by Anabel Moriña, followed by an investigation of some of the special issues faced by students with special educational needs, ‘Academic Self-efficacy, Sense of Coherence, Hope, and Tiredness among College Students with Disabilities’ by Shiri Ben-Naim, Roni Laslo-Roth, Michal Einav, Hadar Biran, and Malka Margalit.
The next set of papers explores the experiences of students within the higher education system opening with Dorien Jansen, Katja Petry, Eva Ceulemans, Saskia van der Oord, Ilse Noens, and Dieter Baeyens contribution, ‘Functioning and Participation Problems of Students with ADHD in Higher Education: Which Reasonable Accommodations are Effective?’ This is followed by two papers that address students with ASD, ‘Making the Transaction to Post-secondary Education: Opportunities and Challenges Experienced by Students with ASD in the Republic of Ireland’ by Sheena Bell, Cristina Devecchi, Conor Mc Guckin, Michael Shevlin and ‘Functioning and Participation Problems of Students with ASD in Higher Education: Which Reasonable Accommodations are Effective?’ by Dorien Jansen, Katja Petry, Eva Ceulemans, Ilse Noens and Dieter Baeyens. While it is unusual to find two articles by the same lead author (i.e. Dorien Jansen) in the same issue, we chose to include both as we believe that this kind of nuanced replication is essential in building a comprehensive understanding of effective practices for different groups of students under a variety of conditions.
Rachel Hewett, Graeme Douglas, Michael McLinden and Sue Keil’s paper, ‘Developing an Inclusive Learning Environment for Students with Visual Impairment in Higher Education: Progressive Mutual Accommodation and Learner Experiences in the United Kingdom’ shares the unique experiences of students with visual impairments. The next two papers address emerging areas within higher education. First a look at mental health with ‘Responding to the Needs of Students with Mental Health Difficulties in Higher Education: An Irish Perspective’ by Esther Murphy and second, an examination of programming for students with intellectual challenges with Kristín Björnsdóttir paper ‘Belonging to Higher Education: Inclusive Education for Students with Intellectual Disabilities’.
Two short reports shift the focus to institutional practices of staff and faculty. ‘Re-visiting the Issue of Disability Coordinators: The Changing Needs of Disabled Students and Current Support Strategies from a UK University’ by Mujde Koca-Atabey and ‘NDual PowerPoint Presentation Approach for Students with Special Education Needs and Note-takers’ by Nitin Naik share best practices to support student success. In the final paper, ‘From the Voice of a “Socratic Gadfly”: A Call for More Academic Activism in the Researching of Disability in Postsecondary Education’, Jane Seale offers a clarion call for progressive and inclusive approaches to research and policy as we continue to improve practice so that all students can find the support they need to be successful within our institutes for higher education.
Thank you,
FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
[email protected]
Michael Shevlin
Inclusive and Education and Society Research Group, School of Education, Trinity College, Dublin, Republic of Ireland