Inclusion
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Introduction
You child’s school years set the foundation for the rest of his or her life and the decisions that you as a parent make regarding your child’s education will have a lasting impact on your child’s adult life.
While not expressly called inclusion in the IEP, the section of the IEP that focuses on classroom placement is essentially describing whether your child is included, and if so, to what extent he or she is included.
What every parent wants is for their child to be included and accepted by his or her peers, to have friends, and to be part of school and community life. Adults with developmental disabilities also say that what they want most is to be included and accepted by their communities and to be a contributing part of everyday community happenings. Yet inclusion and acceptance are two of the hardest desires to achieve, especially once adulthood is reached.
By focusing on inclusion at a young age, the chances are much greater that as students with developmental disabilities and their classmates age, the positive experiences and benefits of children with and without disabilities being educated together will carry over into adulthood, thereby helping to break down the barriers often faced by adults with disabilities.
Defining Inclusion
Inclusion means that individuals with varying needs of all ages have the opportunity to participate equally in typical community activities with people without disabilities. The philosophy of inclusion assumes that each person has the same basic rights as all other members of the community.
Choosing Inclusion
The inclusive classroom is a natural place to foster friendships and acceptance of children with disabilities as they share the school experience with their peers. As students without disabilities interact with students with additional needs, they not only develop friendships, they also begin to understand and accept differences in all people.
Supporting Inclusion
There are many innovative approaches to teaching students with varying needs, coupled with a new-found understanding of the benefits that inclusion affords to everyone – teachers, students with and without disabilities – that have lead to ever greater interest in creating more inclusive schools.
The Koch-Young Resource Center (KYRC) has a variety of training materials (books, videos and curriculum), to complement programs and techniques that have been developed over the years to help support the inclusion of children with disabilities so all students learn to help each other and value diversity.
If proper planning and support are built in, most teachers and parents are enthusiastic about inclusion once they learn how it works and how it can be successful for all students.
View the KYRC collection online at library.lanterman.org
Implementing Inclusion
There is a range of supports that are available to make inclusion for the child with unique needs a reality. These include: training, adapted curriculum, positive behavior intervention and use of technologies.
Classmates also fill an important role as a support to the included student. Peer interaction and tutoring can be the most effective teaching tools, as well as self-esteem builders for both the student with and without disabilities.
The goal of any of these supports is that the student is included and becomes a valued member of the class.
Benefits of Inclusion
There are many positive benefits achieved through inclusion:
- Students learn to appreciate each other’s unique strengths and abilities.
- Students are encouraged to help each other.
- Students with disabilities are able to foster friendships in a natural way and in a natural environment.
- Students without disabilities get a chance to develop positive attitudes toward people with differences.
- The sense of belonging helps build self-esteem and a feeling of achievement.
- Students often learn desirable social behaviors from each other, in a typical environment.