Just like Special Education students in schools, students who require one-on-one teaching from trained teachers. It was abbreviated as sp.ed., and where I grew up, "sped" was a common insult, as in "you're such a sped", or "that sped is so retarded".

I once got into a debate with someone on Reddit where they claimed "Middle East" is an offensive term, which was news to me. They preferred "West Asia and Northern Africa", or something. I claimed that this is just taking the same path that "oriental" took, which is now taboo in some countries, even though it literally means "from the east" and is the opposite of "occidental".