HI Emir,

I'm a (PH.D.) clinical psychologist and behavior analyst (BCBA) in San Diego, CA (US).  I think there are many difficulties with our current attempts to fully included children with special educational needs in the gen ed setting.  What is a SEN student?  I only think inclusion is possible with additional supports to the classroom teacher, additional training and close tracking of the special needs child's IEP goals.

 HI Emir,

I'm a (PH.D.) clinical psychologist and behavior analyst (BCBA) in San Diego, CA (US).  I think there are many difficulties with our current attempts to fully included children with special educational needs in the gen ed setting.  What is a SEN student?  I only think inclusion is possible with additional supports to the classroom teacher, additional training and close tracking of the special needs child's IEP goals.

Hi Emir,

I think there are many factors to consider. The number of students in the class, the availability of teacher assistant who take care the students with special educational needs, and many others. To hard for a teacher to handle the class if there are s many students in the classroom. To hard for a students to handle if the students differences in the classroom is too vary.

Teachers in the inclusion classroom need to master what so called differentiated instruction approach. They have to be able to differentiate their instruction to accommodate their students' interest, ability etc. They may use differentiation in input, process, or output of their instruction. 

Unfortunately, most of our country teachers, who teach at mainstream classroom, are not familiar with that approach. They usually using single method to teach their students. They teach for the average students, not every students. So, if we ask these teachers to teach special need students in their mainstream classroom, I don't think they will be able to do it successfully.

Great efforts are needed to prepare these mainstream teachers in order to help them to teach special need students included in their normal classroom. They need to be trained on how to conduct differentiated instruction, and at the same time they have to train on how to manage the classroom and its environment to support this differentiated instruction. I believe there are many other things that they should have in order to teach in the inclusion classroom. This is not an easy one. 

I am sorry for being pessimistic.

But... at the same time I realize the need to teach students especially how to communicate and interact positively to others with different ability, different mindset, and different cultures. They need to be trained how to behave nicely to others, whatever their limitation. They need to be trained how to show their empathy, respect, helpful, and other positive characters in order to life peacefully in the word. 

So, there is a kind of dillemma.

In one position I am pessimistic, but on the other hand, I think we need to provide better experiences for normal students to communicate, interact and working together with students with special need students. 

So... my final position is: Let's us find out the way. I suggest to conduct studies to find the better way for this inclusion issue. The best word could be NEVER GIVE UP TO FIND THE BEST WAY TO SERVE FOR EVERY STUDENTS' LEARNING. That's the teachers' and researchers' task. 

Best regards

Abdur Rahman As'ari 

There are some very useful policy and practice documents from the Ministry of Education in New Zealand - go to their site and you will be able to download these.

It depends on the severity of the disability. Severely intellectually impaired children who are often severely motor impaired would do better with an alternate curriculum which includes portfolio assessment, assistive technology, work and social skills training and communication devices or assistance. I believe in mainstreaming these students at recess or lunch but for academic subjects they need a  curriculum tailored to their future outcomes.

Great answer. 

I'm a class teacher and a special education teacher in Finland. Our system has three basic levels of support, the basic, the intensified and the special support,  including  part time and full time special classes. Some children with special needs do study in ordinary classes, but as others have said here, the help for the student and for the teacher must be there.Extra adults are often needed to make inclusion happen.

But I would like to add, that the success of inclusion also depends on the teaching method used in the group. If the method itself allows variation in skills and multiple ways to work, for everyone, the system itself incudes diversity. Children with severe special needs may still require extra work in a smaller group. That should not mean that they are left outiside from their age group, though, but that they get the support in the way they need it and in the same time they can feel that they belong to their group or class. Not always easy to make it happen, but lets keep working on it!

Great answer - there is now significant literature on this and I think it is important to keep pushing for inclusion and participation that is responsive to individual needs. It is also about citizenship and the rights of all people to be supported to participate in their communities.

Yes, Robyn, exactly! This is a larger issue. All too often the parents (of the other children) and the whole community seem not have an inclusive attitude or even if they say they have, they may  behave in  segregative ways. But here we come to the point of education, to make the world a better place and not only to transfer the old thinking to the next generation.

Dear Emir

 As described so far this is a challenge that can be met  not by a single teacher but by a collaborative team of educators and the community who share the responsibility to educate each and every child together with their peers. There are several elements that enable such a system such as a shared vision and leadership on the right of every child for participation in a quality education with peers, a flexible holistic curriculum  which is accessible to every child, trained educators that share expertise on reaching each child with availability of support as required for each child to join his or her peers. This means also that at different stages of education from early childhood to tertiary there is a need for different types of organisational arrangements ... Research on this challenge at European level is constantly being carried people and agencies, and mainly by the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education on whose website you can find several relevant reports. Note also that by all I mean all children whatever their characteristics and backgrounds.

The empirical evidence on this is very clear:  Children with disabilities fully included in mainstream classrooms do better academically and socially compared to those segregated. This includes students with very significant and multiple disabilities.   They don't of course 'keep up' (nor are they expected to by law in most countries) but any pull-outs for 'special classes' has a detrimental effect.  The more they are included, the better they do.  In addition, the other students benefit academically and socially.  Fundamentally it is a moral question:  Who belongs in our mainstream classrooms and who is to be relegated to a known inferior type of education?  We used to do it to girls -- segregate them and teach them 'life skills' of how to be a good wife.  It has also been clearly stated as a fundamental human right of the child under Section 24 of Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability.  See a detailed literature review at http://www.include.com.au/resources/ or http://alana.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/A_Summary_of_the_evidence_on_inclusive_education.pdf

Also be aware that the term 'special' has damaging impacts.  Time to drop the whole notion of special needs.  https://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s41235-016-0025-4

See also a nice site on inclusion with lots of information for teachers on how to include.  http://www.startingwithjulius.org.au and go to SWJ IncludEd

 Thank you very much to all your impressive answers my precious educator and scientist friends. I do share same ideas with you for fully inclusion. I support the fully inclusion of special educational needs (SEN) students in mainstream classroom. I agree on that they should be educated with their peers in an adapted classroom with necessary adjustment. But if we come to real class experience in UK, class teachers has a responsibility for all classroom and they mostly give the duty of teaching and interaction with SEN students to the teaching assistants (TA). However, TAs has a little or no knowledge to teach to pupils with SEN. What can be done to have a better inclusion in terms of teaching? 

Emir,

I've seen it work well in the states, when the teacher has some background in a solid inclusion model with a clear plan how s/he will make sure both the mainstreamed and SEN students' academic needs are met.

With a solid IEP and method of data collection for the SEN student, the teacher can direct the TAs in their support and level of prompting for the child.

I think the best example of inclusion I've seen was in a pre-kindergarten classroom.  There were three classrooms in a row.  The center classroom was for SEN students, the room on either side of the SEN classroom was a neurotypical/physically typical pre-K class.  The ratio of students to actual teachers in the middle class was 1:4.  The teachers of the two typical pre-K rooms was the usual 1:12.  All the classrooms had adjoining doors and a clear plan as to how children moved between rooms for different activities.  This meant that SEN children moved into the "inclusion" setting as needed (with either a teacher or an aide) or the "Typicals" moved into the center (SEN) room for activities w/o their teacher or other staff support.  It was a beautiful model and I think it would work well for the upper grades too.  I do think it taks a great deal of planning and everyone knowing what the goals of the SENs IEPs are.

Nobel work you are doing :)

Sherry

I am a Chartered and Counselling Psychologist and have specialised in disability, diversity and relationships.

From a slightly different perspective, given the comments above are all very relevant and valid, there is a problem when it comes to 'integration' at a social level. When looking how social relationships and self image develop it is important to consider how integrated the pupil is. This may be different for different groups and the experience of physically disabled children in the past, being educated in special schools was not on the whole positive, educationally or psychologically. However, in the attempt to correct this, the results of moving such pupils into mainstream schools and education has often been disappointing. This is often because the training, support and understanding at an institutional, policy and educational level was not adequate. There are also areas such as friendship development, sexual and relationship education and dealing with disability as an aspect of diversity within the school community that can, and does challenge the ethos within mainstream education and even society as a whole. As a result these issues are sidelined and the outcome for many disabled young people can be to reinforce there 'otherness' as they are taught within, but not with their peers, and often by 'specialist' teachers or teaching assistants. 

Separate education did not work well for most, but the current state of integrated schooling is not working that well either. Unfortunately the chances of improvement is not not looking good at present. Change requires fundamental change to meet emotional, psychological and educational needs and have better training and understanding of how disabled pupils can be a positive real experience of what integration van feel like and be a learning opportunity for the whole school and visa versa.

societal view that sees children with special educational needs as ineducable, there are few qualified special education teachers. Many students are taught by teachers with no training in the teaching of special needs. Unfortunately these teachers do not last long due to their lack of knowledge and methodology together with high enrolment in classrooms.

I think it would be useful to look at the work in New Zealand in the Ministry of Education and also in the Ministry of Social Development and the Disability Strategy. These provide excellent guidelines for best practice.

Emir

Your question/concern regarding inclusion has made you take your eye off the ball.  The issue isn't mainstreaming or not. The idea of Special Education comes out of a false consciousnesses.  Like  the idea of disability, Sp. Ed is a political concept. It's a social construct. like adolescence. Sp Ed. has nothing to do with education and was invented as a way to get around Brown v Bd. Now, students were segregated not based on color, but on "ability."   All of  sudden Black boys had that darned "LD"!

Review A disability history of the US by Nielsen.  Alblism avoids the fact that it is the way a person is viewed that creates "disability" not the nature of the person.

"I'm not deaf, you can't sign. I'm normal; you have a signing disability. " ~ comment by a so-called deaf person

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cordial saludo 

Considero que plena no es posible. nos acercamos a unas posibilidades desde el aprendizaje, pero existen casos que requieren la educación personalizada o de ajustes que modifican sustancialmente el currículo general

http://www.propiedadpublica.com.co/inclusion-para-educarnos-mejor-atencion-a-la-diversidad-desde-el-programa-de-educacion-inclusiva/

I am a PhD student at the university of Botswana studying Adult education. I am interested in inclusive education and gender in higher learning institutes. I believe like Sherry Casper that the model she is it talking about can work. If we politicize issues like this one the the children or people with special needs will forever be marginalized. They can contribute in their own way significantly to the development of a community or country.