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Inclusion Debate

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Inclusion Debate

Inclusion Debate

?Inclusion: Pros and Cons Inclusion is a very
controversial idea because it relates to educational
and social values, as well as our sense of
individual worth. Inclusion is the assignment of
students with disabilities to regular classrooms in
neighborhood schools for the entire school day.
These children participate in all the regular school
activities. It involves bringing the support
services to the child rather than moving the child
to the services, and requires only that the child
will benefit from being in the class rather than
having to keep up with the other students.
Physical accommodations, sufficient personnel,
staff development and technical assistance, and
technical collaboration are all brought into the
classroom to assist the special needs child in a
regular classroom. Those who are for inclusion
claim that segregated programs are detrimental to
students and do not meet the original goals for
special education. Recent meta-analyses show a
small to moderate beneficial effect of inclusion
education on the academic and social outcome of
special needs children. Those who support
inclusion believe that the child always should
begin in the regular environment and only be
removed only when appropriate services cannot
be provided in the regular classroom. Another
study assessing the effectiveness of inclusion was
done at John Hopkins University. In a
school-wide restructuring program called,
Success for All, student achievement was
measured and several positive changes were
noticed: a reduced fear of human differences
accompanied by increases comfort and
awareness, growth in social cognition,
improvement in self- concept of non-disabled
students, development of personal principles and
ability to assume an advocacy role toward their
peers and friends with disabilities, and warm and
caring friendships. However, for inclusion to be
successful, adequate supplementary aids and
support services must be present. The teacher
needs to prepare students to be accepting of the
special needs students by being honest about the
nature of the child's disability and/or behavior
difficulty. Although inclusion seems like a great
idea that should be of some form of benefit for
all involved, if not handled properly it can
become a very stressful situation. As an
elementary school student, I remember being in
my classroom about mid-semester and the teacher
announcing that we would be having and
additional student joining us. She went on to
explain that this particular boy had had difficulty
in his previous school due to behavioral
problems but that she was going to try to work
with him. She asked that if he ever acted out
towards us, that we not retaliate but instead go to
her or the principle and tell them. She also asked
that we be friendly and not treat him indifferently
because of his behavioral problem, but to instead
understand that he could not help but be this way.
Although the teacher probably felt that by arming
us with this knowledge we would be able to
handle encounters with this boy better, we were
in no way prepared to deal with the disruptive
and sometimes abusive nature of this boy. The
rest of that school year was very hard for all of
us. The boy had no ability to concentrate, sit still
or be quiet. The teacher would try to teach the
lesson over his outbursts but needless to say, not
much was learned for the rest of the year. I
believe that inclusion is a good idea when all the
proper facilities, services, aids and proper
disciplinary strategies are present. However, if the
teacher/classroom/school, are not well equipped
to handle inclusion, it can become a very stressful
hardship for all involved. The regular students
will become distracted by the constant
disruptions, they can even resort to acting out
themselves because they are seeing the inclusion
student is not being disciplined. The teacher can
become frustrated with the chaos in his/her
classroom and feel unable to regain control or not
able to effectively teach the class with constant
disruptions occurring. In my opinion, the best
way to deal with children with behavioral
problems or learning disabilities is early
intervention. The greatest debate over inclusion
versus special education for children with these
kind of problems is that their academic
performance is below those of their agemates.
However, many of these students could have
succeeded in school in the first place if they had
had effective prevention and early intervention
programs. There is strong evidence that a
substantial portion of students who are now in
the special education system could have been
kept out if they had had effective early
intervention. Studies of high quality early
childhood programs such as the Perry Preschool,
the Abecedarian Project, and the Milwaukee
Project all showed substantial reductions in
special education placements for students with
learning disabilities and mild mental retardation.
The program, Success for All, which combines
effective early childhood programs, curriculum
reform, and one-to-one tutoring, has reduced
special education placement by more than half.
These findings suggest that special-education
services could be greatly reduced if prevention
and early intervention programs were
implemented. Ultimately, the key to the child's
success lay in the hands of the educators. It is
their duty to provide proper assistance and
instruction for these children in order for full
inclusion to be successful.

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