School Psychology in India
School psychology is an area within psychology that is concerned with the educational and
psychological well-being of children in academic settings. While school psychology training and
practice is well established in developed nations, this area has received little recognition in India.
The roles and functions of school psychologists vary across countries, and are developed in
accordance with the educational policies of that nation. School psychology training and practice is
regulated through universities and federal agencies, together with professional associations in the
fields of psychology and education (Oakland & Cunningham, 1992). India, it highly sounds for her
rich tradition and culture. The ancient psychological approaches in education were intertwined with
philosophical concepts and principles. There are several models practiced in India especially for the
school curriculum. Education that experiments with multiple ways of knowing, being, feeling, doing
and relating that give justice to a multitude of social, cultural and philosophical traditions. In this way
basic education programmes transcend the ontological, epistemological and methodological
divisions between real life situations and academic disciplines.
In India, school psychology is a new field of study. In western countries the school psychology
is popular subject of study. It mainly applies principles of clinical psychology and educational
psychology so as to diagnosis and treatment of children‘s behavioural and learning problems.
School psychologists are trained professionals in psychology, child and adolescent development,
psychopathology, family and parenting practices, learning theories, and personality theories working
in educational setting. They are trained in such a way to carry out psychological and psychoeducational assessment. They are also trained in counselling of children and parents. They have to
follow the ethical, legal and administrative codes of their profession. They are trained professionals
for effective instructions in schools.
The school psychology is intertwined with issues related to education and psychology of
children. As the children grow the role of school psychologists are vital and essential. In this unit we
will enumerate the basic concept and importance of school psychology, historical foundations of
school psychology, and contributions of school psychology. We will also discuss various aspects
related to school psychology so as to have clear understanding about the subject.
Concept of school psychology
The term school psychology is used in a general form to refer it as entire field of psychological
research and practice use in schools. School psychologists are professionals trained in knowledge
and skills from various psychological practices and working in educational setting. They are
recognized as specialists in the provision of psychological services to children and youth within the
contexts of schools, families, and other educational settings that impact their growth and
development. The President of International School Psychology Association Prof. Bill Pfohl says that
the school psychologists are unique in building the capacity of educational systems and enhancing
the competencies of all students.
It deals with issues related to learning and behavioural problems of children. The practitioners
in school psychology are known as school psychologists. They are specialists of clinical and
educational psychology to help confront several learning and educational problems experienced by
children, teachers, parents, and communities. They are skilled practitioners in the areas of psychoeducational assessment, childhood development, behavioural management, individual/group
counselling, and consultation. Simply saying, they are advocates for children. They are helping the
children to learn and overcome behavioural problems. They will not impose any thing for learning.
Whereas they facilitate to the children, guide the children to overcome their psycho-socio problems.
They not only guide but also inspire by the way the children need to learn things from the class
room.
The school psychologists are continually apprising many issues affecting the lives of children in
educational settings. Mostly the issues such as crisis intervention, social skills training, self-esteem,
behavioural management techniques, attention deficit disorders, post traumatic stress disorders are
primary concern of school psychologists. The flow chart given below is representing the various
common issues of concern for school psychologists:
Self-Esteem
Social Skills Training
Crisis Intervention
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorders
Attention Deficit Disorders
Behavioural Management Techniques
School Psychologist
Children and School Psychology
In this section you would know the children and role of school psychology. School psychology
helps in improving academic competence and school success for all children. It helps to increase
academic competence for all students. It increases academic competence for students with diverse
needs in classroom and home environment. It increases academic competence for students with
disabilities. School psychology helps improvements in children‘s readiness for learning, overcoming
the learning difficulties. It helps improvements in children‘s early literacy and reading skills.
School psychology increases in students‘ attendance rates, increases in students test scores,
decreases in students‘ disciplinary referral rates, mainly decreases in school drop-out rates and
increases in occupational success after school completion. It helps decreased rates of referral for
early intervention, decreased disproportionate placement of children and youth from culturally and
language diverse issues in special education. The school psychology increases parent confidence in
schools because of children‘s academic success, improves social-emotional functioning for all
children, increases social competence for all students, increases social competence for students
with diverse needs and backgrounds
The school psychology increases social competence for students with disabilities, improves
problem solving and coping skills to deal with stressful situations at home and school environments.
The improved social skills with peers, teachers, and families lead to positive behaviours. It also
increases student resilience and enhanced mental health status. Each and every family enjoys the
privilege of psychological well being and safety, it increases social-emotional learning strategies and
reduces in incidents of school violence
Children education and school psychology
Academic Factors: School psychology equalizing our focus on the academic development of
child, meeting variable needs of children as they come to school—incredible amount of needs, need
to reconsider current practices, such as starting all kids to school at the same age, progress
monitoring procedures for academics, continuing to treat all kids, age they start school and grade
procession, the same when we know they are not, and subjecting them to failure, helping them
achieve their potential, emphasis on academics and high stake testing to the exclusion of mental
health needs.
The school psychology increases teacher knowledge of best teacher practices, addressing high
standards and equity, quality instruction-must be available to all students, access to appropriate
teaching, getting knowledge to teachers on effective instruction, teaching content rather than
teaching to a test, it helps to believe all children can learn. The practice of school psychology
identifying and delivering effective instructional programs, meeting variable needs in regular
education, fitting all requirements (academic and social/emotional learning) into the school day,
addressing reading development early using research-based practice, developing functional reading
and written language skills.
Academic needs are taken care of school psychology by meeting their educational needs,
bringing the best of education to all children through adequate funding, leaving some children
behind, and equal access to good education
Mental Health Factors: Mental health of the children is essential to feed proper education. The
school psychology helps equalizing our focus on the mental health development of child, meeting
their mental health needs. Proper mental health concerns that interfere with educational
performance, classroom management, crisis work, and prevention programmes.. The school
psychology assures social skills competencies, trying to meet basic needs for nurturance from a
secondary position, the mental health services for children and youth will be enhanced through
school psychology.
Environmental Factors: School psychology helps in anti-intellectual climate among students,
environmental impacts, readiness‖ to learn due to lack of basic needs, etc. It helps compensating for
the effects of poverty and disadvantage, the lack of skills of disadvantaged kids entering school. The
school psychology creates a sense of belonging among students.
Health and Prevention: School psychology helping people to understand the relationship
between mental/physical health and academic success, it increases psychiatric diagnoses and use
of medicines, responding in crisis situation instead of implementing preventative measures in all
schools.
Historical foundations of school psychology
In the Western countries the school psychology was developed as a separate discipline and
fast growing. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the school psychology was developed in the
United States of America. The school psychologists are interested in childhood behaviours, learning
processes and disorders. They are very keen in understanding the causes of the behaviours and
their effects on learning. The school psychology has also found its origins in functional psychology. It
is well connected with clinical psychology and educational psychology. In the beginning of 1890,
both clinical and school psychologists contributed to improve the lives of children. The school
psychologists are concerned with school environment, childhood behavioural problems, and parental
care.
Historically tracing, work by Francis Galton, James Cattell, and Alfred Binet on the development
of mental tests was the basis for school psychology. Experimental attempts made by Galton and
Cattell to develop individual intelligence tests were formed a foundation. The modern intelligence
testing and its application to education are mostly based on works done by Binet. The Binet-Simon
Scales of Intelligence found in 1904 was widely used in France. The Binet-Simon test was revised in
1916 by Lewis Terman at Stanford University and later it was known as the Stanford-Binet
Intelligence Scales. This was widely used in the United States. The intelligence testing and the
identification of children with special needs became a foundation of early school psychology. The
school psychology started from intelligence testing later influenced by the clinical psychology. Hence
educational psychology and clinical psychology are directly influencing the school psychology.
In the 19th century several social reforms took place related to socio political concerns. In view
of the emerging development of social reforms that reflected on education of children. It created the
need for school psychologists to look after the children in schools. School psychologists played a
major role in shaping the children for the next generation. These social reforms included compulsory
schooling, juvenile courts, child labour laws as well as a growth of institutions serving children. Since
the education in the western countries are institutionalised, where as in India education is socialised.
The foundation of school psychology is mainly associated with work done by Lightner Witmer.
Witmer was a student of both Wilhelm Wundt and James Mckeen Cattell. He opened his first
―psychological and child guidance clinic‖ at the University of Pennsylvania in 1896. The response
from the public made him to work with school-related problems especially learning problems of
children. Witmer concentrated his scientific laboratory into a clinic to diagnose and treat children of
various kinds of problems. The service rendered by him well received by the public and spread over
the country. The contribution made by him closely associated with both clinical and school
psychology. Thereby he created a new discipline school psychology.
Lightner Witmer was considered as founder of school psychology. The term school psychologist
was first used in a 1911 publication. However, the term did not appear in general usage for many
years. The first clinical facilities associated with a school were established in the Chicago Public
Schools in 1899. G. Stanley Hall created a child care movement for the depiction of children‘s
behaviour. Arnold Gesell is the first person with the official title of a School Psychologist was hired
by the state of Connecticut in 1915. His primary function was to test children for possible special
class placement. Later, the creation and growth of the profession of school psychology gained
momentum between the 1920s and 1960s.
In 1930, Gertrude Hildreth has published an article, Psychological Service for School Problems.
This was an eye opener for school psychologists. Since then professional organizations play a vital
role in the development, growth, and continued strength of every profession. There are three
prominent professional organizations in USA. The first professional organization founded exclusively
for school psychologists was the Division of School Psychology (Division 16) within the American
Psychological Association (APA). It was founded in 1945 to represent the interests of psychologists
practicing in school settings. In 1969, the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) was
created to actively promote the interest groups related to practice school psychology ion the country.
The third school psychology association was formed in 1972 as International School Psychology
Association (ISPA) which attracted large number of European school psychologists.
Psychological and Educational Foundations
The meaning of psychology is to study of behaviour and mental process. The psychology
evolved as the study of soul, or study of mind, or study of consciousness, or study of behaviour.
Presently the psychology is a science which studies the behaviour and mental processes. It has
been widely applied in various other fields like education. Education means to modify behaviour
through the process of learning. Educational psychology is the behaviour of human beings in
educational environments. It is the study of human behaviour, its growth, development, learning
process, learning situation, teaching process and evaluation of learning performance.
The responsibilities of school psychologists are linked to the pressures of the present education
system, (that is the pressure to perform and do well academically) on both students and their
parents. The educational counsellors have to intervene in cases where these pressures affect the
students‘ performance and apart from counselling them, they need to network with teachers, families
and, if need be, with other professionals like doctors, psychiatrists and child psychologists, to help
the students cope with and overcome their problems.
Prof Peter Farrell of Manchester University points out that despite the fact that parents and
children have proclaimed a desperate need for more support and guidance in the areas of severe
learning disabilities and coping problems in mainstream schools, no positive steps have been taken
to tackle this problem. Clinical Psychologists who work in hospitals rarely visit schools.
In addition he states that the Nation‘s schools should consider the gravity of the present
problems and take necessary and prompt action to overcome them. In such an alarming scenario,
the interventions of a school psychologist are urgently required. However at present there is no
association of School Psychologists and in fact, ―the profession does not really exist.‖
School psychology services
The school psychologists are professionally trained in both psychology and education. As
suggested by the National School Psychology Association, the school psychologists must have databased decision making, consultation and collaboration, effective instruction, child development,
student diversity and development, school organization, prevention, intervention, mental health,
learning styles, behaviour, research, and program evaluation. School psychologists help children
and youth succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. They collaborate with educators,
parents, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments for all
students that strengthen connections between home and school
The school psychologists understand that schools are important in the lives of young people,
not all school psychologists are employed in schools. Many school psychologists, particularly those
with doctoral degrees, practice in other settings, including clinics, hospitals, forensic settings,
correctional facilities, universities, and independent practice.
Mostly school psychology training programmes are requiring courses, practical, and internships
that cover the domains of:
1.
Data-based decision-making and accountability;
2.
Consultation and collaboration;
3.
Effective instruction and development of cognitive/academic skills;
4.
Socialization and development of life skills;
5.
Student diversity in development and learning;
6.
School and systems organization, policy development, and climate;
7.
Prevention, crisis intervention, and mental health;
8.
Home / school / community collaboration;
9.
Research and program evaluation;
10. School psychology practice and development; and
11. Information technology Standards for Training and Field Placement, 2007.
The school psychology programme is designed to prepare school psychologists who have a
strong and broad-based knowledge of psychology, educational psychology, and child development,
and are prepared to apply that knowledge to school settings. The school psychology programme at
the University of Minnesota is one of the oldest and most well established graduate programmes in
school psychology in the country. It is accredited by multiple governing bodies, including the
American Psychological Association (APA), the National Association of School Psychologists
(NASP) and NCATE.
The major role of school psychologist in the schools is to administer a variety of psychoeducational assessment instruments. These instruments are used to assess the students‘ learning
and academic experiences as well as behavioural difficulties in the classroom. Based on these test
assessment collected from the students, the school psychologist help the schools determine if a
student is eligibility for special education services. School psychologists work with students of
different educational problems and needs. They also assess the parental behaviour so as to help the
children at home. The key issues of concern during assessment are given in the diagram:
Role of School Psychologists
The school psychologists play a major role in helping the children to overcome their learning
difficulties and enhance their knowledge and skills. All children and adolescents in school and home
face problems from time to time. They may feel afraid to go to school due to various reasons, have
difficulty organizing their time efficiently to lokk after their needs, lack of effective study skills due to
learning difficulties, fall behind in their school work and finding displeasure in reading, lack of selfdiscipline, more worry about family matters such as poverty, divorce and death, feel depressed or
anxious, experiment with drugs and alcohol, think about suicide, worry about their sexuality, face
difficult situations, such as applying to college, getting a job, or quitting school, and question their
aptitudes and abilities. These problems can be addressed only by the school psychologists. The
school psychologists help children, parents, teachers, school administration, and members of the
community understand and resolve these concerns. The following are some of the examples of how
school psychologists make a difference in educational settings.
The school psychologists are trained professionals applying their vast experience in the field
of school psychology. Mostly they apply different psychological techniques to solve the problems.
They will not solve problems with stereo type method. Some cases are presented here will help you
to understand the situation of the student and the role of the school psychologist in solving the
issues.
Student perspective:
The school psychologists provide counselling, instruction, and mentoring for those struggling
with social, emotional, and behavioural problems. They increase achievement by assessing barriers
to learning and determining the best instructional strategies to improve learning. In order to promote
wellness and resilience by reinforcing communication and social skills, problem solving, anger
management, self-regulation, self-determination, and optimism the school psychologists initiate
several activities among students. They enhance understanding and acceptance of diverse cultures
and backgrounds of the students.
Family perspective:
The school psychologists identify and address learning and behaviour problems related to
family environment that interfere with school success of the students. They evaluate eligibility for
special education services and support students‘ social, emotional, and behavioural health. The
school psychologists create an ambience with parents to enhance home–school collaboration.
Teacher perspective:
The teachers identify issues are addressed by the school psychologists and resolve academic
barriers to learning. In collaboration with the teachers design and implement student progress
monitoring systems so as to enhance the learning abilities. The school psychologists design and
implement academic and behavioural interventions to students through effective individualized
instruction. They are helping the students to create positive classroom environments. The school
psychologists are motivating the students to engage in learning.
Administrator perspective:
The school psychologists helping the school administration to collect and analyze data related
to school improvement, student outcomes, and accountability requirements. Implementation of
school-wide prevention programmes that help maintain positive school climates conducive to
learning. They promote school policies and practices that ensure the safety of all students by
reducing school violence, bullying, and harassment. In most of the cases school psychologists are
helping the administration to take safe guard measures related to school students.
Community Perspective:
The school psychologists regularly keep in track with the school administration and the local
community for effective delivery of services to students and their families in and outside of school.
The school administration helps students‘ community learning environments, such as residential
treatment or juvenile justice programmes. In most of the cases the school psychologists are
satisfying the role of community services.
Work settings of School Psychologists
Mostly school psychologists are working in schools and educational institutions rehabilitation
centres such as special schools . They are practicing professionals in a variety of settings including
public and private schools, universities and higher education institutions, school-based health and
mental health centers, community-based day-treatment or residential clinics and hospitals, juvenile
justice centers and private practice.
Competencies in school psychology
In this section you would like to know the competencies in school psychology. The School
Psychology Program at Duquesne University has adopted 10 competencies around which
coursework, field experiences, and Programme activities have been designed. These include the
following:
1. Legal/Ethical Practice and Professional Development: Develop a knowledge base and
understanding of the various roles and functions of practicing, academic, and supervising school
psychologists, and be able to selectively deliver services from a variety of alternative models.
Develop a knowledge base of federal and state laws, professional ethics, and professional standards
and the skills to apply them in public and private educational agencies. Develop the skills to adhere
to due process guidelines in major decisions affecting all students. Develop the skills to adhere to
ethical practices for conducting research in school psychology.
2. Organization and Operation of Schools: Develop an understanding of the organization
and administration of public schools as systems and the cultural, ethnic, religious and geographic
diversity of the students, families and staff served by school psychologists. Develop an awareness of
community resources and the roles of other professionals in helping children, parents and school
personnel. Develop the skills to foster and facilitate interagency partnerships among family, school,
health care, and community agencies to create and maintain safe, supportive, and effective learning
environments. Develop the skills to conduct effective program evaluations of services.
3. Assessment: Develop the skills to select, administer, score, and interpret psychoeducational tests for individuals of different ages, exceptionalities, and cultural backgrounds.
Develop competence in the use of interviewing, functional behavioural assessment, and curriculumbased assessment methods for problem-solving and identifying evidenced-based interventions.
Develop the skills to integrate psychological and educational assessment data to develop academic
and behavioural interventions and to communicate those data in a variety of ways.
4. Biological Basis of Behaviour: Develop knowledge to select, administer, interpret, and
evaluate psychological tests of brain-behaviour relationships. Develop knowledge to integrate
information derived from such tests into psycho-educational reports, recommend school-based
interventions, and evaluate intervention outcome.
5. Counselling: Develop a counselling and mental health knowledge base and the evidencebased interventions to work with students who have educational, emotional, and/or behavioural
problems to mitigate the emergence of enduring, unhealthy patterns of behaviour. Develop a
knowledge base and skills to help students, families and schools deal with crises, such as school
violence, suicide and loss. Develop the skills to evaluate the effectiveness of services.
6. Consultation: Develop a knowledge base of behavioural, mental health, and collaborative
consultation. Develop the skills to collaborate with school professionals and families to provide direct
and indirect services. Collaborate in the design, implementation, and evaluation of evidence-based
interventions. Develop the oral and written communication and interpersonal skills necessary to
communicate effectively with children, families, and school personnel from varied cultural, ethnic,
religious, and geographic backgrounds. Develop the interpersonal skills to function as team leaders
in school-based multidisciplinary teams. Develop the skills to conduct program evaluations of school
psychological services.
7. Intervention: Develop a knowledge base and the skills to identify controllable, causal
aspects of social, emotional, and academic difficulties and design, implement, and evaluate through
progress monitoring evidence-based interventions. Develop the skills to provide prevention and
intervention programs that promote the mental health and physical well-being of students.
Recognize the importance of implementing evidence-based interventions for primary prevention and
management of academic, behavioural difficulties.
8. Student Diversity in Development and Learning: Develop a knowledge base of individual
differences, abilities, and disabilities and of the potential influence of biological, social, cultural,
ethnic, experiential, socioeconomic, gender-related, and linguistic factors in development and
learning. Demonstrate the sensitivity and skills needed to work with individuals and families of
diverse characteristics and to implement strategies selected and/or adapted based on individual
characteristics, strengths, and needs. Recognize the family as a system and its impact on student
learning.
9. Science of Psychology and Education: Develop an understanding of the value of science
for the practice of psychology and education and the value of practice for the science of psychology
and education. Develop the skills to utilize an empirical basis for all methods involved in
psychological and educational practice. Become educated consumers of research relating to school
psychology and be able to apply these research findings to the development of solutions for
educational and psychological problems. Be able to disseminate information to colleagues and
families from the school psychology knowledge base to promote healthy school environments.
Develop competence in progress monitoring and program evaluation techniques to determine
outcomes.
10. Emerging Technology: Develop a familiarity with technical advances and the skills to
identify the potential applications of these advances as they relate to the practice of school
psychology. Develop competence in using technology to advance the practice and science of school
psychology. (Source: NSPA, USA)
Indian Context of School Psychology
India is a multi cultural and multilingual developing country in the Asian subcontinent. It has
multifaceted schooling systems which cater to the needs of the children. In India, the schools run by
the state governments, both in urban and rural areas differ in many respects from the private
English-medium schools that draw children by and large from economically prosperous families.
Thus, the Indian setting today is characterized by the existence of schools of various standards,
which may be distinguished on the basis of a number of indicators, including teaching methods,
physical infrastructural facilities, and policies of administration.
The children of these schools need proper psychological guidance to learn and acquire skills
and abilities. School psychologists alone can provide the necessary professional guidance to the
children in schools. At present Indian schools are badly in need of such professional school
psychologists to create an ambiance to teach and learn so as to provide desired high quality school
education in the country.
In India, academic psychology is predominantly dominated by the Western concepts and
principles. The psychology graduates mostly get training on educational and clinical psychology.
School psychology is a new area to study and research based on International models. The
competency requires both knowledge and skills in a particular domain.
In the context of Indian scenario, school psychologists are generally known as counselling
psychologists or counsellors. The school counsellors mainly focus on short term goals of
psychological services to schools. In the multi faceted changing situations, Indian schools are badly
needed of professional school psychologists. The elementary education system in India is amongst
one of the largest in the world. More than three million teachers employed in school education.
There are ten lakh school educational institutions in the country.
The concept of education in India differs from the rest of the world. The present day education
in India, especially school education needs to be strengthened with psychology modules. The
contents must be revamped so as to train the teachers at the school levels to understand the social
needs of education. The school education is not just bookish or recitation, what our forefathers
taught at Gurukulas. In order to understand the reality of educational needs of the society this paper
tries to enumerate Indian models of psychological approaches in education.
Many educational thinkers tried their best to introduce a need based education, especially
satisfying the needs of the society. The British system of education was overwhelmingly welcomed
by the public, because it provided jobs like our present technocrats, the eighteenth and nineteenth
centuries enjoyed the privilege of English education to get jobs in the Government sector. The
English education merely produced degrees and diplomas, these degrees and diplomas are not
welcomed by the industries. It clearly shows that Indian education needs something essential to
teach apart from these traditional ways of producing degrees.
Primary Education is the first stage traditionally found in formal education, beginning at the age
group of 5 – 7 years and ending at 11 to 13 years. Even though the school education is comes
under the State subject, all the States and Union Territories (UT) of India have adopted a uniform
structure of school education. The present school education system is having 10+2 year of
schooling. There are different types of educational process in school education. The following issues
are:
i) Number of students in the classes constituting the Primary, Upper Primary, High and Higher
Secondary school stages.
ii) Age for admission to class I
iii) Medium of instruction
iv) Learning difficulties and socio economic status of children
v) Public examination conducted by the State governments
v) Teaching of mother tongue, Hindi and English
vi) Number of working days in a year
vii) Academic sessions
viii) Vacation periods
ix) Fee structure
x) School environment
The present school education is free and compulsory and a fundamental right for children
from the age of 6-14 years from April 2010. The different stages of school education are as follows:
The primary school stage (Classes I – V) comes under the age group of 5 to 10 years; The middle
school stage (Classes VI – VIII) comes under the age group 11 to 13 years; The secondary school
stage (Classes IX and X) of age group 14 to 15 years. The senior/ higher secondary school stage
(Classes XI and XII) comes under the age group 16 to 17 years. Given in the educational structure
the school education is having different modes of instructional designs.
Since there is no specific graduate programme in school psychology, the National Council for
Educational Research and Training (NCERT) is conducting a programme for school teachers in
Guidance and Counselling. This course is helping the teachers to get professional training to
counsel students regarding different issues e.g. career- related problems, personal, social and value
conflicts. It will be based on the ‗teacher-as-counsellor‘ model and will be a six month course,
including an internship.
Key Terms
Clinical psychology: It refers to scientific study of mental disorders. One of the major branches
of psychology concerned with the nature, diagnosis, classification, treatment, and prevention of
mental disorders and disabilities.
Creativity - Artistic or intellectual inventiveness.
Education: It means to modify behaviour through the process of learning.
Educational psychology: it is the behaviour of human beings in educational environments. It
is the study of human behaviour, its growth, development, learning process, learning situation,
teaching process and evaluation of learning performance.
Exceptional learners - Students with an IQ in the bottom or top three percent of the
population, or those with other physical or mental differences which affect learning.
Gifted - Having superior mental ability or intelligence. A label of potential. The intellect and
emotions of gifted children are both quantitatively and qualitatively different.
Inclusive education: The term inclusive education has traditionally been used in relation to
children with a disability. Children with disabilities meet social, economical, cultural, psychological
and physical problems in the community. The inclusive education helps thedisabled children to
maximize their learning abilities. Inclusive education means that all children in a school, regardless
of their differences, are part of the school community and can feel that they belong.
Learning disability - A deficit in a specific area, such as word decoding or arithmetic
computation, which is out of line with overall intellectual ability.
Occupational therapist : A special education-related service provider who works with students
to improve the functioning or compensate for problems in fine motor functioning. Some of the areas
OTs help with are grasping, holding, writing, and keyboarding.
Over excitabilities - A term originated by Kazimierz Dabrowski to describe excessive response
to stimuli in five psychic domains such as psychomotor, sensual, intellectual, imaginational, and
emotional which may occur singly or in combination.
Physical therapist: A special education-related service provider who works with children to
improve the functioning of large muscle groups, such as range of motion, walking, positioning, etc.
Psychology: The meaning of psychology is to scientific study of behaviour and mental
processes. The psychology evolved as the study of soul, or study of mind, or study of
consciousness, or study of experiences, or study of behaviour. Presently the psychology is a science
which studies the behaviour and mental processes.
Sarva Sikhisha Abiyan: It is a scheme launched by the Government of India to educate all
children. This is a successful movement to educate all children at the age group of 6 to 14 years.
Self-contained classroom: A special education service model in which students receive all or
most of their instruction or support from special education teachers and staff.
Special Education Programmes: It involve the following aspects: early detection, functional
assessment of children, placement services, learning materials, support services for children,
individualized instructions, parental training, special educators, and infrastructural support in special
schools.
Special educators: Special educators are trained professional for training the children with
special needs. Basically special educators are having specified qualification in teacher training and
special education. Special educators are playing major role in working with children in inclusive
schools and special schools.
School Psychology: It is used in a general form to refer to professionals prepared in
psychology and education. They are recognized as specialists in the provision of psychological
services to children and youth within the contexts of schools, families, and other settings that impact
their growth and development.
School Psychologist: They are professionally trained in both psychology and education. As
suggested by the National School Psychology Association, the school psychologists must have databased decision making, consultation and collaboration, effective instruction, child development,
student diversity and development, school organization, prevention, intervention, mental health,
learning styles, behaviour, research, and program evaluation. School psychologists help children
and youth succeed academically, socially, and emotionally. They collaborate with educators,
parents, and other professionals to create safe, healthy, and supportive learning environments for all
students that strengthen connections between home and school.