Inclusion Of Students With Mental Disabilities

Inclusive learning can be described as an integrated form of learning where learners with special needs are thought with those without special needs. According to Nind et al: “Education and educational provision is shared by both normal’ pupils and those with a disability, at the expense of differences in the specific nature of each child or young person and her/his particular strengths and areas of weakness, and consequences that these differences have in terms of educational needs.”[1] This means that the aim of inclusive practice is to create a neutral learning environment. It should be noted that that every learner will have different needs and

These are just five factors that can affect students with disabilities in a general education classroom. Only a deep understanding of these factors, and other issues that hinder inclusion, and the elimination of them will make true inclusion a reality for all children to learn together.

In some general classrooms, teachers tend to give more time and attention to children with disabilities, leaving general education students who may be struggling with little to no help. Socialization is another whole ballpark, inclusion could lead to children developing negative attitudes about peers with disabilities, especially if they feel they are receiving more attention from the teacher and other students in the classroom. Teachers of general education classes may have a fear of teaching students with disabilities. They feel they do not know them well enough and that they will make a mistake. This can then in return allow the teacher to push the student with a disability away and not give them the best education piece they can. These teachers feel like they should not have to change their classroom for a student that is coming to them. It also shows that these teachers are not trained properly in special education.

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.

The teacher can encourage this inclusion by teaching the students, parents, and other community members about negative stereotypical attitudes about students with disabilities by avoiding negative words, such as “disabled”, or “crippled”, or “handicapped” and to promote positive ideas about disabilities into class work, the student’s play time and other activities. To further ensure that the classroom is promoting equality for the child with the disability, the teacher should incorporate an inclusive curriculum mindset, by adapting the lessons, learning materials and classroom to suit the needs of all the different types of learners including the child with the disability within the classroom.

Within the past decades and a big discussion has occurred regarding the most appropriate setting within which to provide education for students in special education. Although the change in the educational environment is significant for handicapped student the concepts of inclusion also bring up new issues for the regular education classroom teachers.

Schools in today’s society are rapidly changing and growing striving to implement the best practices in their schools. Nonetheless, before a school can implement a program in their school, they need reliable evidence that the new program will work. A new program that schools are aiming to implement is inclusion in the classroom because of the benefits inclusion could bring. The implementation of inclusion is strongly connected by people’s attitudes whether they are positive or negative. However, while inclusion is being widely implemented, there is comparatively little data on its effectiveness. It may be that inclusion benefits some areas such as reading and social skills, more than it does others.

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.

Separate special education provides no guarantee of success for children who need special attention. Students with special needs may fail to conform to the expectations of school and society, (Carter, Lewis, & Wheeler 2017) Inclusion may present issues for teachers that do not possess the skills to make it work. Teachers must collaborate with a team of professional to plan and implement instruction for students in an inclusive environment. Students without disabilities could begin to see the students with disabilities as a distraction in the class depending on the needs of the student with disabilities.

Special education students have severe behavior or emotional issues that can disturb the classroom learning environment for themselves and the non-disabled peers. Disabled students often act out from not feeling accepted, frustration from the difficult material, and their cognitive obstacles. According to the article Time to leave inclusion out, seventy percent of teachers blamed the inclusion of children with special needs for increasingly bad behavior in the classroom.

Over the past twenty years, there has been a strong movement within schools around the United States to integrate students with disabilities in to general education classrooms. Schools have been making more efforts to increase educational opportunities for students with disabilities, and while there are many benefits to inclusion, there are also many challenges. Inclusion of special education students in a regular education classroom continues to be the center of debate amongst administrators and teachers. Everyone has their own ideas and attitudes towards inclusion, and research studies have revealed that there are many things that contribute to those positive or negative attitudes.

Every child has the ability to learn, but the way a child learns and processes knowledge can be very different, especially for a child with special needs. (Mainstreaming Special Education in the Classroom) As a society we owe all children the chance to reach their full potential, thus we must set up an environment where this accessible. Integrated education unarguably allows the must vulnerable and excluded children this chance. According to Inclusiveschools.org, “Inclusion” does not simply mean placing students with physical or mental disability in general mainstream classrooms, but rather offers fundamental change to school community and how children learn altogether. Effective models of inclusive education according to various sources, is the right model of education for special needs students because it allows greater access to mainstream curriculum, preparation for integration in an inclusive society, and promotes a tolerant and inclusive society. (Full inclusion: Has its time arrived?, The Benefits of inclusive Education.)