additional needs the same as special needs?

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I was reading "People don't get me, mom" by Jackie Mercurio on Good Housekeeping about her aspie son overcoming his negative thoughts of depression and misunderstanding. Somewhere in the article Jackie quoted "feed, pray love: raising 5 children (1 with additional needs) is frustrating."

im thinking 'additional needs' be different from special needs? like calvin learns academicaly perfectly fine but his aspergers gives him issues with social and senses and emotions more than regular kids his age but dosen't struggle with school learning like science and history,? im terrible at math and history and DONT' have aspergers...

i dont know if what i said was ableist, but i don't mean to be that way. could she have said 'special needs' instead?

the article in question: http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a20040/shebooks-memoir-contest-winner/

Additional needs might be another PC term for special needs.

I had not heard that phrase either.

I'd guess it's one of those cyclical things where a word becomes a pejorative because of its association with something so the word gets replaced by another word which will eventually become a pejorative and be replaced.

But I did find it used in context here:
https://www.holyrood.com/articles/news/ ... g%E2%80%99
"pupils with additional support needs (ASN)"

And that's a Scottish zine, so it may be a regional term.

Additional needs is a broad term that can include categories such as: learning difficulties, intellectual disability, complex disorders, health difficulties, physical impairment, wearing glasses and having asthma.

Additional needs become special needs when the person requires support to function in daily life.

I always thought special needs was someone with a disability if they needed any extra understanding and support. So I always considered myself as being special needs growing up. I would say I had academic needs, social needs, language needs, and learning needs. I thought these would all be special needs.

Additional needs = special needs.

However, 'special needs' doesn't always mean disability. In a lot of school districts, gifted kids, teen mothers and kids learning English as a second language are also called special needs, because they have needs that most kids don't have.

Would pregnant teens be considered special needs? They also need accommodations too. I wonder if slow learners would be special needs but yet they don't qualify for special education but some schools are still willing to put them there to help them. They are just not obligated to do it is all. But I have also noticed similarities between autism and slow learners.

Definitely.

My brother went to a school for special needs teens, and most of the girls there were pregnant.

Were those pregnant teens there because they were pregnant or because they had a disability and then they got pregnant?

I would take the term literally and say that "additional needs" means that you can do everything the same as a normal person, but have needs that others don't have, and "special needs" means that you are unable to do something the same as a normal person, and so need the task to be adapted so you can do it.

For example: I would consider my need for a second desk in elementary school to help with my organization problem, an additional need, because it didn't change the way I did my work, or the way people taught me, it was just an extra thing I needed to succeed.

By comparison, my need for extra time on my classwork and exams, as well as receiving truncated homework with fewer problems, I would consider a special need, because I was unable to complete my work in the same way as my classmates, so I needed those tasks adapted to me so I could do them.

If that makes any sense.

Jackie Mercurio says she and her son are working on writing a longer version of the story. I'd like to hear the part where she tells Calvin about his asperger diagnosis and what she said to him, and more about the grey-putty brain model the doctor showed Jackie while talking about Calvin's medications.

She needs to write an entire novel about her aspie son Calvin, that would be interesting

i'd also like to hear what middle school is like for Calvin with his condition and have the novel (which should be named "Feed, Pray, Love" after the story) turned into a documentary, that'd be a bestseller!

sorry if I was getting too carried away, but Jackie sounds like a blooming author to me....

Additional Needs is a British term for Special Needs.