Inclusion Of Special Education Classroom

For years children with special needs were ushered off to separate classes and schools. Children with special needs have the right to attend classes with their same aged peers in the same classroom with support. Students with special needs deserve the same opportunities they would have if circumstances were different. Inclusion gives those students with special needs the chance to be part of the community; able to form relationships outside of the family unit. All students benefit from inclusion; students with disabilities develop social skills and develop friendships while non-disabled students learn tolerance and acceptance.

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.

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.

This interview of four teachers and parents showed surprisingly positive feedback about inclusion. Both parents of children with disabilities and non-disabilities had positive attitudes toward inclusion. Parents with non-disabled children said that their children became more educated about other disabilities, more empathetic toward students with disabilities, and also improved their self-esteem. A parent who a child with Autism said that the reason for enrolling her daughter in a general education was that she hopes her daughter to become more social and reduce her disability over time.

There are several ways that students with special needs are able to make academic progress through inclusion. First, exposure to greater academic expectations, from teachers and peers, often enables students with disabilities to achieve far beyond the level that their disability would seem to allow them to achieve (Hammond & Ingalls, 2003). Due to the fact that special education teachers often have lower expectations than regular classroom teachers, and that special education teachers tend to only expose special education students to a much more limited and simplistic version of subject matter, many special education students do not achieve as much as they are actually capable of achieving, in the confines of the special education resource room (Deloney & Tompkins, 1995).

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.

As a special education initiative, inclusion began as early as the 1980s. Now, more than two decades later, schools are changing as educators, parents, politicians, and communities try to prepare for the new challenges and promises of the twenty‐first century. The new educational conversation centers on how to design schools and student learning for a future that many educators find nearly impossible to even imagine. How students with disabilities and special education fit into this future is also an ongoing challenge of inclusion. While much progress has been made in responsive inclusive relationships, trends point to some troubling results especially for minority students, and students with some kinds of disabilities. The newest challenge

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.

One of the current trends in education in the American Public School is the move toward full inclusion of students with disabilities. There has been a rapid rise in the number of students with disabilities who are spending their school day in a general education classroom under the guise of full inclusion. Inclusion is purported to be based on the rights of the students and the social benefits that they receive from being in a general education classroom. There are many who see this as a solution to the problem of how to best educate children with disabilities. Is including children with special needs in the general education classroom beneficial to their education? Since we cannot expect to "Cure" or "Fix" these kids who have disabilities, how can we educate them to their fullest capacity? The goal of educating these students with disabilities should be no different than the goals of educating the students who are in general education, which is that we should educate them in such a way as to help them realize their full potential. This is where the problem and controversy arises in regard to students who have disabilities; how best to do this? To fully understand the issue of inclusion in the American Public School, we must examine the history of inclusion, the laws regarding the education of students with disabilities, and what some of the experts in education have to say about it. Only after a full examination of the facts can we decide for ourselves which is most

If students with disabilities are isolated in the special education classroom, they aren’t being exposed to appropriate type of student modeling (Hill, Amy E.).” Another advantage of inclusion for a special education student, is the opportunity to make new friends and share new experiences. The student is exposed to a whole new world of students that they don’t see in their everyday special education classrooms. They are able develop friendships with peers of the same age which can lead to greater acceptance in the community (Hill, Amy E). Inclusion can increase the student with a disabilities self respect and self esteem. When they start to make connections with the regular education students and teachers, they start to feel a sense of self esteem. They start to feel good about themselves and about their overall school

In the first research paper written by Dr. Lorna Idol (2006), the purpose of this program evaluation was to examine and describe how special education services were provided in four elementary schools and four secondary schools in a large, metropolitan school district in a southwestern city. The primary intent of this program evaluation was to determine how much, if any, inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classes was occurring in these eight schools. Another intent of the study was to better understand how each school provided for students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment, as mandated in the education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 and further clarified through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA- 1990).

The subject of integrating children with disability into regular classrooms has been the epicenter of debate among scholars and practitioners in the special education industry. This owes to the reality that authors like Berg (2004) and Cassady (2011) made publications on the topic in question. It is critical that the integration of physically and mentally disabled children into regular classes is a transforming global issue that must be subjected to various applications and interpretations. In fact, Cassady (2011) asserts that the idea of integrating students with disabilities into regular classrooms causes controversy among administrators, teachers, and parents. This topic is controversial because some scholars believe that all students qualify to attend regular classrooms while other scholars argue that only those students that can maintain identified rates of academic progress should attend regular classrooms.

For thousands of years individuals with exceptionalities have been present in all parts of society across the world, especially those with physical or sensory characteristics. However, the way that these individuals have been viewed has changed dramatically. Originally these individuals were seen as ‘imbeciles,’ ‘worthless,’ and ‘a burden on society’ and were often shut away from ‘normal’ society or simply left to die or abandoned to institutions. Society has, however, created a positive change and started to exhibit a more humanitarian view and protective nature and developed a concern for the welfare of individuals with exceptionalities. The steadily changing view of society has paved the way to where today these individuals are now considered a part of an all-inclusive society where every citizen has value, merit and is capable of making a contribution to society.

Throughout the last few decades, the system of special education has developed tremendously. It was created to meet the educational needs of disabled children, or children who were considered to have special needs (Kerney 2). The history of special needs education has evolved from little to none, to exclusion, and hopefully through the next few years an all inclusive environment. One of the largest issues special needs students must face is exclusion, which is, the process where certain groups of people are pushed to the margins of society and prevented from participating. In an educational setting, what typically happens is a student is formally removed from school for reasons of inappropriate behavior or as a disciplinary action. (Kerney 10). The act of exclusion can have negative effects on the child both educationally and emotionally. It is said that disabled students are of the largest group that are marginalized and many are experiencing barriers to their presence, participation, and learning in school (Kerney 1). According to a recent survey of 400 families with special needs students, it was found that, “22% are illegally excluded once a week and 15% every day” (Murray). Many schools will exclude and send their students home because of lack of staff support or the student is just having an off day. This has a huge impact on students and causes them - up to 53% - to fall behind in school (Murray). The data from this survey shows how largescale the issue is and how

Parents never want to hear that their child has a life-altering disability that will require additional assistance with special services. Roughly thirteen percent of public school students are receiving special education services. Barbara Boroson, a Scholastic author on Autism Spectrum Disorder, asks the special education inclusion population, “How has education evolved from exclusion to inclusion” (Boroson, 2017). The issues with special education inclusion have been going unnoticed for many years and now is the time for a change. Special education inclusion is an issue because it bears against social and educational values. People all around the world have tried to fix these issues, but their attempts have been unsuccessful. They have tried making amendments to include special needs students in general classrooms. They have also tried to create ways to individualize criteria for each student. These attempted solutions have not created a final answer but led us to find the perfect way to solve inclusion’s problem.