Assessment of Challenges Associated With Special Needs Students in H.l.a Special Basic School, Agodi Ibadan.

ABSTRACT
Learners with disabilities (also known as special needs) experience lower rates of school enrollment and completion, as well as higher rates of poverty and unemployment. They are more likely to experience physical and social barriers, such as inaccessible buildings and negative attitudes from peers and educators. Special needs education refers to the education practices, programs, and policies designed to meet the individualized needs of learners with disabilities or other exceptionalities. Education of persons with special needs is generally bedeviled with lots of challenging factors in Nigeria.
This study used a descriptive cross-sectional design study. The study area for this research was H.L.A Special Basic School, Agodi Ibadan North. The study population for this research was Basic 1-6 students. The sample size for this study was one hundred and fifty (150). The sampling technique used for this study was total enumeration. Data was collected using a self-administered open and closed structured questionnaire with six parts. The collected data were entered into an SPSS software, cleaned, and analyzed and results were presented in tables.

The finding found that the prominent disability was a mental disorder. The findings showed that sociocultural challenges associated with learning disabilities were family support (p=.00), discrimination (p=.00), Societal attitudes towards disabilities (p=.01), negative attitudes from peers, educators, and society (p=.01), and cultural beliefs and diversities (p=.01). Physical challenges associated learning disabilities were architecture design (p=.02), accessing and processing information (p=.04), isolation from extracurricular activities (p=.02). Financial challenges associated with learning disabilities were fund to purchase specialized and assistive technologies (p=.00), school transportation (p=.00), purchase assistive technologies (p=.00) while essential resources challenges associated with learning lack of access to headphone defender (p=.01), and word prediction (p=.01).
The study concluded that special needs students face diverse significant challenges and they lack many facilities. Thus, if these students must perform at their best, these challenges must be immediately addressed.