Special Education and the Use of Integral Theory

Do you know what integral theory is when it comes to psychology? Have you ever seen one of those giant boxes with the "X" inside, with four separate quadrants? Well, there are psychological tests which you can take which ask you a number of questions, after you have completed all those questions it tallies up the results and tells you where you fall within the boundaries of personality type, political persuasion, personal interests, or abilities.

Now then, not long ago I talked to an instructor involved in special education. It seems they have done research using integral theory and found that they were able to place special education kids into specific individual curriculum based on where they ended up in the box, after assessing the student and answering a bunch of questions. They have had tremendous success with this. Unfortunately, not all the special education classrooms around the country are using these methods when trying to determine the most appropriate education for a special needs, Autistic, or slow learning students.

The other day we were discussing this at our think tank, and it seems that these techniques and methods should be used more often. Why do you ask? Well, because the Autistic spectrum is quite large and very wide. The challenges of special needs kids are so vast that even one-on-one education is not always enough. By using integral theory to properly assess each individual student, the teachers are better able to help the children along and make terrific inroads in their learning.

When it comes to education it's important that we do what works, and just like anything else it's important to assess our strengths and weaknesses. Each child learns a little bit differently, and there is a very large range between all of the students in a special-needs classroom. There's no sense in making it harder than it already is, and by knowing where each child is coming from, and how they will learn best, it is quite possible to achieve spectacular results in a very short amount of time. Indeed, that is what my acquaintance has shown in her research, in the actual classroom setting.

If you are a special education or special needs instructor or teacher, perhaps you should look into this as well. There have been some great research papers written on this in many of the educational journals, but best of all it's working in the real world, where it really matters with real children. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.