Conceptualización y modelos de atención de la educación especial en Venezuela

This article shows the results of a research whose endpoint was the analysis of the evolution of the concept of special education in Venezuela over time as well as the models of attention in the practice. This is a descriptive character work based on the study of documents and bibliographies dealing with this topic. In regard to its theoretical approaches and models of attention, the development of special education field in Venezuela has shown an evolution similar to that one in other countries of the world. Thus, the medical model characterized by the labeling and exclusion of individuals considered handicapped, at the beginning of the twenty century, was replaced later, during the 70s, by a psycho-pedagogical model, with psychological and pedagogical approaches as the main perspectives to attend this population. Labeling or classification of the population attended by the special education lost power with this approach, and the focus was on how to satisfy the educational needs of these individuals under the curriculum. The term individuals or subjects with special educational needs (SEN) gained ground and spread by the ending of the twenty century. Recently, in Venezuela, the proposal is an integral educational model of attention or integral model (particularly in the field of learning disabilities), and the term disability is more frequently used.