Inclusion (education)
[4] Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett wrote, "student performance and behaviour in educational tasks can be profoundly affected by the way we feel, we are seen and judged by others.
Mainstreaming (e.g., the Human Policy Press poster; If you thought the wheel was a good idea, you'll like the ramp) tended to be concerned about "readiness" of all parties for the new coming together of students with significant needs.
Thus, integration and mainstreaming principally was concerned about disability and 'special educational needs' (since the children were not in the regular schools) and involved teachers, students, principals, administrators, School Boards, and parents changing and becoming 'ready for'[12] students who needed accommodation or new methods of curriculum and instruction (e.g., required federal IEPs – individualized education program)[13][14] by the mainstream.
[23] For children with significant or severe disabilities, the programs may require what are termed health supports (e.g., positioning and lifting; visit to the nurse clinic), direct one-to-one aide in the classroom, assistive technology, and an individualized program which may involve the student "partially" (e.g., videos and cards for "visual stimulation"; listening to responses)in the full lesson plan for the "general education student".
[24] As Dr. Wehman has indicated, expectations can include post secondary education, supported employment in competitive sites, and living with family or other residential places in the community.
"Full inclusion" – the idea that all children, including those with severe disabilities, can and should learn in a regular classroom has also taken root in many school systems, and most notably in the province of New Brunswick.
[48] Some students may be confined to a hospital due to a medical condition (e.g., cancer treatments) and are thus eligible for tutoring services provided by a school district.
[52] One key to creating a gender-friendly classroom is "differentiation" which essentially means when teachers plan and deliver their instruction with an awareness of gender and other student differences.
[52] In addition to a curriculum that recognizes that gender impacts all students and their learning, other gender-sensitive curricula directly engages gender-diversity issues and topics.
The study found that LGBT students in inclusive school settings were much less likely to feel unsafe because of their identities and more likely to perceive their peers as accepting and supportive.
It is centered on the inclusion of marginalized groups, such as religious, racial, ethnic, and linguistic minorities, immigrants, girls, the poor, students with disabilities, HIV/AIDS patients, remote populations, and more.
[70][71] However, a critical critique of the LRE principle, commonly used to guide US schools, indicates that it often places restrictions and segregation on the individuals with the most severe disabilities.
When a child displays fine motor difficulty, his ability to fully participate in common classroom activities, such as cutting, coloring, and zipping a jacket may be hindered.
[Nolan, 2004] The importance of inclusive, integrated models of service delivery for children with disabilities has been widely researched indicating positive benefits.
Inclusion administrators have been requested to review their personnel to assure mental health personnel for children with mental health needs, vocational rehabilitation linkages for work placements, community linkages for special populations (e.g., "deaf-blind", "autism"), and collaboration among major community agencies for after school programs and transition to adulthood.
[79][80] Highly recommended are collaborations with parents, including parent-professional partnerships in areas of cultural and linguistic diversity (e.g., Syracuse University's special education Ph.D.'s Maya Kaylanpur and Beth Harry).
[citation needed] Finally, some students are not good candidates for inclusion because the normal activities in a general education classroom will prevent them from learning.
[42] He also says that for some students, notably those with severe autism spectrum disorders or "mental retardation", as well as many who are deaf or have multiple disabilities, even regular inclusion may not offer an appropriate education.
It is evident that students with disabilities benefit more in an inclusive atmosphere because they can receive help from their peers with diverse abilities and they compete at the same level due to equal opportunities given."
For example, a global citizen studying the environment might be involved with planting a tree ("independent mobility"), or going to an arboretum ("social and relational skills"), developing a science project with a group ("contributing ideas and planning"), and having two core modules in the curriculum.
James M. Kauffman and Jeanmarie Badar wrote an article that opens by saying if inclusion is the main priority "then special education will one day be looked upon as having gone through a period of shameful neglect of students' needs".
They go on to say that special education programs that pull students with disabilities out into separate classrooms and provide them with more attention, more time, and sometimes different assignments are extremely beneficial.
In 2020, Dr. Chelsea P. Tracy-Bronson of Stockton University did a study looking at what people at the district level are doing to help inclusion in special education run smoothly.
Students with ASD have provided several strategies to use to improve their quality of education and the interactions that occur in the classroom, with accommodations being carried out that relate to their specific needs.
Full and partial inclusion approaches neglect to acknowledge the fact that most students with significant special needs require individualized instruction or highly controlled environments.
[107] Some researchers have maintained school districts neglect to prepare general education staff for students with special needs, thus preventing any achievement.
Moreover, "push in" servicing does not allow students with moderate to severe disabilities individualized instruction in a resource room, from which many show considerable benefit in both learning and emotional development.
They argue that special education helps "fix" the students with exceptionalities by providing individualized and personalized instruction to meet their unique needs.
[114] To implement UDL into a classroom, educators must understand not only the needs of their students, but also their abilities, interests, backgrounds, identities, prior knowledge, and their goals.
Some classrooms or schools believe that being inclusive means that students with exceptionalities are in the room, without any attention paid to their need for support staff or modified curriculum expectations.
