Final answer:
A semantic web assists special education students by visually organizing vocabulary and concepts, enabling better understanding and memory retention through semantic encoding.
Step-by-step explanation:
A semantic web is a teaching tool used by special education teachers to enhance vocabulary learning. It helps by visually organizing and presenting relationships among words and concepts, thus aiding students in understanding and recalling vocabulary. The use of a semantic web in the classroom engages students with special needs, providing a clear framework for the connection between new vocabulary and their existing knowledge. This method can lead to a deeper level of processing through semantic encoding, which has been demonstrated to improve memory retention more effectively than either visual or acoustic encoding. Semantic webs harness critical thinking and analytical abilities to foster genuine understanding, leading to an enriching learning experience that is highly beneficial for special education students.