The ‘special’ in squalor

Part 3 of our series on gifted and special children, authored by PCIJ Research Director Karol Anne M. Ilagan, looks at how poverty is always a big damper on their families’ hopes to provide for their special children’s special needs. The Department of Education reported in 2005 that across the nation, there were 5.5 million children with special needs but that only around 4.8 percent or 264,000 were being provided with appropriate educational services.

The sidebar, “A future in pieces,” surveys the various proposed legislation to address the needs of the special and the gifted.