Full Inclusion

8 Pages 2052 Words

pecial education and the structural isolation of all teachers. Thus, the need for collaboration between general and special educators has been recognized as the key barrier to improved delivery of services for students with special needs in mainstream settings. Collaboration is premised on the ability of professionals to work together to identify common problems and, through collective reflection, to devise, test and revise solutions, and yet, prior to the inclusion movement, the education of students with disabilities was the sole responsibility of special education. (Clark, Dyson & Millward, 1995)Advocates of inclusion stress that it benefits all that are involved. Not only do the disabled students benefit, but the regular students, teachers and special education teachers also benefit. Inclusion has been advocated as the means to insure that schools educate all students in the mainstream where ‘everyone belongs, is accepted, supports, and is supported by his or her peers and other members of the school community’. (Clark, Dyson & Millward, 1995)Special students remain with their peers; they are not segregated from the normal activities of the school. Labeling is de-emphasized. Resource room services have aided in decreasing the stigma attached to special services because resource teachers often serve students with many different types of special needs. Research indicates that handicapped students can achieve academic success in mainstreamed classrooms; success is most likely when regular education instruction is individualized and when resource room support is available to handicapped students and their teachers. (Lewis & Doorlag, 1991) It has consistently been found that when provided appropriate educational experiences and support in integrated settings students learn more than they do in segregated settings. Research has found that students labeled severely retarded learn more of their IEP objectives in integrated settings, and...