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.

Inclusion is not always easy to implement, but with the vision, willingness, commitment and creativity of families, educators and communities, inclusion provides children with unique needs the opportunities to interact with “typical” peers, which leads to understanding and acceptance, providing a benefit for all students.

Often, peers have little trouble accepting and working with a student with different needs, especially if children are included in early childhood. Usually it is parents and teachers that have a harder time with the idea of inclusion. Parents worry that their child with unique needs might not fit in socially, that other children will not know how to interact with their child, or that the teacher will not be able to give the proper attention to both the child with varying needs and the other students. Teachers worry that they will not know how to deal with the specific challenges of educating children with unique needs.

The first step in getting a child placed in the general education classroom is for a parent to talk to the school district director of special education and let them know that they are considering this classroom setting. Do not wait until an IEP meeting to bring this up, let the school district know so there are at least six months of planning time to prepare information, set strategies, and develop IEP goals identifying supplemental aid that the student with additional needs will need to succeed in the general education classroom.