Identification of special educational needs - Lithuania

According to the Law on Special Education (1998) “Persons with Special Educational Needs are children and adults, who because of congenital or acquired impairments have limited opportunities of participating in the educational process and social life”.
According to the Law special educational needs might be mild, moderate, profound and severe.

A student with special educational needs is the student whose possibilities to participate in education and societal life are restricted because of his/her congenital or acquired disorder. (The Law on Education of the Republic of Lithuania, 2003).

A secondary legislation act is the “Regulations of evaluation and statement of disorders of persons with special educational needs and levels of special educational needs (SEN)” ordered by the minister of Education and Science, minister of Social Security and Labour and minister of Health Care of the Republic of Lithuania on the 12 of July, 2002. This legislative act is used by:

• School Special Education Commissions
• Local pedagogical psychological services (PPS)
• The National Centre of Special Needs Education and Psychology (evaluation, monitoring)
• Special needs education specialists.

There are secondary legislation acts that regulate the work of School Special Needs Education Commissions (in each school) or Pedagogical Psychological Services (they are in almost each municipality). They are also important for evaluation and assessment of special educational needs of students.

Initial detection of a pupil’s problem is made by his/her teacher. The teacher informs the parents of the pupil and only after that  can an initial assessment of the pupil’s special educational needs be conducted by specialists (a special education teacher, speech therapist (logoped), psychologist). They present their findings and recommendations regarding further modification of the programme to the School Special Needs Education Commission that takes a decision. Certain forms (approved by the Ministry of Education and Science) are filled in.

The period for modification of the teaching methods, special pedagogical/psychological assistance has to be indicated as well.

After this period is over, if a pupil still can not cope with teaching requirements and achieves low results, the School Special Needs Education Commission recommends the parents to apply for further assessment to the local pedagogical psychological service (PPS). A team of specialists works at each PPS and there are such services in almost every municipality. These specialists after a further assessment and evaluation period, provide recommendations to parents and the school a pupil is coming from. This indicates what kind of special assistance and education plan/programme that has to be implemented; what kind of special provision is required in order to support the pupil’s learning and teaching process and when it is necessary to repeat the assessment and evaluation of the pupil’s special needs is also indicated.