THE PREVALENCE OF SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN IN TWO SELECTED LOCAL GOVERNMENTS IN KADUNA STATE, NIGERIA

It is imperative that all children must be educated irrespective of their disability. This can only be possible if their disability is identified early enough for proper intervention. The identification of learners with special needs can help limit future academic challenges and also provide the opportunity for the right kind intervention hence, this study sought to determine the existence of learners with Special Educational Needs in two selected Local Government (LG) of Kaduna State which are Kaduna North and Kaduna South. The study was guided by three objectives; first to identify the existence of different categories of Special Need learners in regular public primary schools. Secondly, to ascertain the percentage of each category of learners with Special needs in public primary schools and finally, to determine the gender distribution of the different categories of identified learners with Special Needs in regular public primary schools in Kaduna state. A simple random sampling method was used to select a sample of forty one (41) schools was selected from seventy seven (77) public primary schools of both Kaduna North and Kaduna South LG. The instruments for data collection comprise of a checklist and an open ended questionnaire; both instruments were pilot-tested. The data gathered was inputted into Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 27 and analyzed using descriptive statistic. The data revealed that eight (8) categories of learners with special needs were identified in public primary schools in Kaduna North and Kaduna South. The study also discovered a higher percentage of learners with learning Disabilities in all schools in both LG, also the gender distribution of learners with special needs revealed that more boys have one form of disability or the other. The study therefore recommended that the state Government should employ specialists to manage these learners and augment this by training regular teachers. KEYWORDS: learners, special needs, public schools, identification, gender