Bright Hub Education Inclusion

Inclusion in education is an approach to educating students with special needs. Under the inclusion model, students with special needs spend most or all of their time with non-disabled students. Implementation of these practices varies.

Inclusion is a program that has been in effect for many years, yet has not become standard procedure in all public schools. The program ?inclusion as the name implies, means all students with disabilities, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability and need for special services, receive their total education within the regular education classroom? (Haller 167). Inclusion is an involved program that has taken time to establish in the most beneficial manner, however the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has helped in the formation of the program (Haller 54). ?The Education of all Handicapped children Act mandated that all school-age children with disabilities receive a free appropriate education in the least restrictive environment? (Haller 54). This means that the education program would cease to pull children out of the classroom for resource instruction. The idea of the

Inclusion is the act of placing students with disabilities into the general education classroom. Students are given the tools, time, and resources necessary to actively participate in all aspects of the general education classroom. Inclusion is not just adding a student with disabilities into the classroom, but genuinely including them as valued members of the classroom. Inclusion is not an easy system to put into practice because it requires a great deal of teamwork and cooperation between teachers, administrators, and parents. Positive Inclusion programs closely supervise the social and academic progress to ensure the students are thriving. When inclusion is done correctly, the teacher finds a way to meet the student’s needs in a way that is natural and unobtrusive. The resources and supports in an inclusion classroom benefit all students, not just the students with disabilities.

Some people may ask what inclusion is well inclusion makes it possible for children with and without special needs, interact and learn with each other on a daily basis in a classroom. There are many children in the world today that have special needs. Some of those children do not get to play with “typically developing peers” (NAEYC) or children their age because some schools do not offer inclusive classrooms. There are many reasons why inclusive classrooms are good for everyone involved.

Inclusion is the act of having students with disabilities and abled body students in the same classroom. In concept this has many benefits not only for the students but it also saves time and money for the school, however in practice I do not think inclusion works the way it was hoped to. Inclusion in theory will put light strain on the classroom because of safe guards such as helper teachers are in place to help out. In my experience these teachers are in the way most of the time when students are trying to learn, and students feel cheated when the special needs students are handed a supplemented test making the students feel bad. Lastly that the pros of inclusion in the classroom are set in perfect conditions with good teachers on both sides special education and general education, however most of the time that is not the case.

Inclusion can be defined as the act of being present at regular education classes with the support and services needed to successfully achieve educational goals. Inclusion in the scholastic environment benefits both the disabled student and the non-disabled student in obtaining better life skills. By including all students as much as possible in general or regular education classes all students can learn to work cooperatively, learn to work with different kinds of people, and learn how to help people in tasks. “As Stainback, Stainback, East, and Sapon-Shevin (1994) have noted, ‘...the goal of inclusion in schools is to create a world in which all people are knowledgeable about and supportive of all other

Students with special needs need deserve the same education general education students are presented with. The philosophy of “ Disability Inclusion” concentrates on creating a safe, loving, and effective learning environment for students who suffer from physical, learning, and behavioral disabilities. When a student with disabilities is placed in the same environment as a non-disabled student, the results show wonderful improvement. When we are able to discover the strength of the student we are able to see just how much the student can improve in an inclusion classroom. Disability Inclusion not only sets a new beginning for an equal education of special education students, but it allows for more interaction with the child, and a more hands-on assessment.

Inclusion can be defined differently depending on the setting of which it is applied. Inclusion can be defined as children with special needs being able to participate in recreational activities and school with children of typical development. This means that special needs children have the right to be included in the mainstream classrooms of education, should be able to participate in all activities as their peers do, and should be accepted by their peers and others regardless of their differences (Allen & Cowdery, 2015).

Inclusion in classrooms can further benefit the communication skills and sense of community among students with and without disabilities. “Children that learn together, learn to live together” (Bronson, 1999). For students with special needs, inclusive classrooms provide them with a sense of self-belonging. The classrooms provide diverse environments with which the students will evolve feelings of being a member of a diverse community (Bronson, 1999). For students without disabilities, they learn to develop appreciation of the diversity. The classrooms provide many opportunities for the students to experience diversity and realize that everyone has different abilities that are unique and acceptable. From this realization, the students will learn to be respectful for others with different characteristics (Bronson, 1999). Inclusion in classrooms is beneficial to all students’ individual and community growth.

Many children have had learning disabilities for many years. Each year more and more of these children are being helped. Schools are working to improve their special education programs and to have all kinds of students work together in the same classroom. The practice of inclusion was started because educators felt that special needs students would achieve more in traditional classrooms with non-learning disabled students than they would in special education classes. However, research findings suggest that there really is no difference in academic achievement levels for special needs students when they are placed in regular classrooms.

The child with the more severe disability was more often placed in the segregated classroom setting, and the more functional child tended to be placed in the inclusive setting. As for language development and social skills, in the inclusive settings, the children with severe disabilities had higher posttest scores in language development and social skills than the children in the segregated setting. However, the problem behaviors were lover in the segregated classroom. For the children with less severe disabilities in each of the two settings, the posttest scores were comparable. Along with this study, six other studies also compared the developmental progress of children with special needs in integrated and segregated settings. All of these studies found that inclusion was either comparable or more beneficial than the segregated settings (Raffetty, Piscitelli, and Boettcher, 2003).

In a perfect world, everyone would be accepted just because we are all human beings, but, that is not the case. Children with special needs have been subjected to everything from separate classes and schools to institutions and facilities for years. With the passing of laws children with special needs were taken into consideration and the need for inclusion was brought forth. Inclusion is when all students learn, participate, and contribute to all aspects of the learning process.

Inclusive language regarding with students with special needs has had a huge spark in recent years. It is very common to hear people using person first language regarding students with special needs. By using person- first language, it is recognizing that the person comes first as a human and their disability is second. For example, instead of saying, ‘that special needs kid, Johnny’ it would be more inclusive to say, ‘ Johnny who has special needs’. Especially with more classes vering to inclusion settings, it is important to see the students first and their disabilities second. “Though the definition of the word varies, inclusion, as used by educators, generally means making a child with a disability a full part of the class” (Belkin, 42). To make every child comfortable whether they have disabilities or not, teachers need to have inclusive language and tactics. In the article about a New York

           Better social skills are just one of the many benefits for a student with disabilities in an inclusive classroom. The student gains these by talking to students that are different from them and “by feeling happy for being part of a regular community” (Inclusive Education: A Renaissance). Students get to interact with all types of students, which helps them with their understanding of the world they live in. Social skills are important for all students, and being able to communicate with all different types of people will be crucial when it comes time for employment. The students are also able to observe how the other students in their classroom communicate with one another and eventually pick up on those skills. In a study conducted by Wiener and Tardif, they found that students in an inclusive setting “were more accepted by their peers, had

Most educators believe that children with disabilities and nondisabled children should be taught together whenever possible. Isolating children with disabilities may lower their self-esteem and may reduce their ability to deal with other people. The practice of integrating children with disabilities into regular school programs is called mainstreaming, or inclusion. Students with disabilities attend special classrooms or schools only if their need for very specialized services makes mainstreaming impossible. Many children with disabilities attend regular classes most of the school day: They work with a specially trained teacher for part of each day to improve specific skills. These sessions may be held in a classroom called a resource room, which may be equipped with such materials as Braille typewriters and relief maps for blind students. Other students with disabilities attend special classes most of the day but join the rest of the children for certain activities. For example, students with mental retardation (MR) may join other children who do not have MR for art and physical education.