Students With Disabilities Essay Example

Isolation is a type of alienation that associates with the separation of others. In school, students with disabilities experience it the most than others. Unfortunately there is only medical treatment to help their disabilities but nothing can be done to cure it. Special education students have to rely on their peers and their motivation to continue learning. Although, when they face isolation, they become vulnerable and subjected to alienation. Students with disabilities experience isolation in school that are caused by their social environment, diagnosed abilities, and the inability to continue learning.

Students with social communication disorders such as autism and language disorders are isolated in their social environment when they are rejected by their peers. School is a place where socialization is crucial for children at their age. It is where they build their socialization skills with their peers and teachers at school. “Children with developmental delays may be at greater risk for peer rejection than their peers without disabilities, due to their delayed acquisition of social competence skills” (Rodriguez). Students with speech sound and fluency disorders experience more isolation because they are rejected by their lack of social skills such as the inability to interpret conversations and respond to certain cues. Leaving them isolated and excluded from their peers. Not only high school students with disabilities experience these types of problems, but any age students with disabilities can experience solitude at any age. “Approximately 50 percent of inclusive preschool students with these disabilities are at risk for social rejection by peers and require "evidence-based intervention to promote their social competence” (Rodriguez). Students who do require special interventions are then taken away from their peers to learn in a different environment. Although, students at the same level are put together to learn, some interventions work with students individually. Therefore, both parties face isolation because one is alone and the other has to adapt with peers they are unknown to.

Students with anxiety disorders have difficulty understanding themselves and afraid to face the challenges such as the ability to work and study as opposed to students with physical disabilities such as crippledness and visual impairments. According to Christopher Murray, “Students with high incidence disabilities often have underdeveloped social skills, and by early adolescence many of these youth need explicit social skills training” (Murray). High incidence students require a lot more aid than low incident students because high incident students are diagnosed with more severe disorders such as the autism spectrum and emotional/behavioral disabilities. Low incidence students have physical disabilities like vision or hearing impairing. High incidence students have much more difficulty communicating because they have inappropriate social interaction with others like trouble keeping themselves in control and keeping eye contact. As a result, without being able to understand their peers they become frustrated and stressed which will send a different signal that will cause them to become excluded when they try really hard to communicate, it is difficult for them and give up. Equally, communicating with others is not just the only challenge that students with these kinds of disabilities have to face. Learning disabilities are just as a huge challenge for students to overcome. On the other hand, “learning disabilities is a disorder in one or more of the psychological processes involved in understanding or using language, spoken or written that manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, or spell” (Challenges Faced By Students With Disabilites In Higher Education). Students with learning disabilities face these problems everyday for the rest of their life. When they go to school everyday, they face the challenge of gathering and retaining information from different classes alongside performing well on their schoolwork to pass assignments and homework.

Students with learning disabilities such as dyslexia or processing deficits asuffer isolation when they end up dropping out of school and not able to be with their peers. School is a place for learning, education, and finding a path and career to pursue, but there is no point in it for students with disabilities if they end up dropping out of school because the curriculum is too difficult. Students with disabilities are more than twice as likely to be suspended as students without disabilities, and the loss of instructional time increases the risk of repeating a grade and dropping out (Social, Emotional and Behavioral Challenges). For this reason, students with disabilities are left without the proper education that they need and isolation grows upon them. Without the socialization skills nor the education that they need, they are left hopeless isolated from everything. In addition to dropping out of school, students with disabilities such bipolar disorder or ADHD find it harder to dive back into education, almost completely unable to find a job to help themselves become employed and involved. Nearly half a million students with SLD have left school without a diploma, placing them at high risk for poor outcomes such as unemployment, underemployment, and involvement with the criminal justice system (Social, Emotional and Behavioral Challenges). Graduating highschool should be one of the most memorable moments in life. However, knowing that half a million students with disabilities did not get their diploma will bring a lot of isolation because they are not able to graduate with their peers and have to be held back. 

Similarly, alienation is also used strongly to present isolation in Tim O’Brien’s novel about his experiences in the vietnam war, The Things They Carried. In the chapter, “Speaking of Courage”, O’Brien narrates the time where a comrade of his named Norman Bowker comes home after the vietnam war, and realizes how deserted he is after coming home. “[She] looked happy. [She] had [her] house and [her] new husband, and there was really nothing [he] could say to [her]. Norman Bowker shrugged. “No problem”, [he] murmured” (O’Brien 139). Norman had known someone named Sally who he had always hearted eyes on ever since high school. They would hang out and spend time driving around together. Coming back from the vietnam war and seeing that she is already married and living in a new home, Norman felt empty and lonesome that the fact that things are not what they used to be. Coupled with Norman Bowkers homecoming from the vietnam war, nothing was waiting for him when he came home. “Already [he] had passed them six times, forty-two miles, nearly three hours without stop. [He] watched the boys recede in [his] rearview mirror” (O’Brien 140). Norman had no place to go when he came home. All there was waiting for him was the lake that he used to go to observe and see beautiful sunsets. The first thing that Norman did was drive around the lake over and over again, all alone by himself until the sun had set.

Given these points, students with disabilities do experience a lot of different ways of isolation, from isolating from their peers, to themselves, and their education. They go through a lot throughout their lives and being born with their disability already puts them at an disadvantage. Students with disabilities deserve better treatment, if not their disability, then at least for their education to prevent them from becoming alienated with isolation.