[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on Inclusion in Special Education
The hottest issue in special education during the 1980s and 1990s was where, not how, students with disabilities should be taught -- the schools and classrooms they should attend, not the instruction they should receive. No leader in special education, or anyone else, to our knowledge, has suggested that all students with disabilities should be taught in special, separate classrooms and schools. However, advocates of full inclusion argue that all students, regardless of the nature of their disabilities, should go to the schools they would attend if they had no disabilities. Moreover, these advocates urge that all students with disabilities attend ordinary classrooms alongside nondisabled classmates for most or all of the school day (Lipsky & Gartner, 1997). Those opposing full inclusion argue that a full continuum of alternative placements ranging from regular classrooms to resource classes, special self-contained classes, and special day or residential schools and hospitals is necessary if every student with a disability is to receive an appropriate education.
The assumption underlying full inclusion is that the regular classroom in the neighborhood school is -- always and for all students -- the least restrictive alternative placement, if not the only place in which they can be given an appropriate education. In contrast, the assumption underlying a full continuum of alternative placements is that the least restrictive environment (LRE) for learning will vary from student to student and often from time to time for a particular student as well.
Basically, altering the nature of that class in content, instructional design, pacing, attention span, and the like. At present, the “inclusion” movement insists that the nature of the class be changed because of the special needs students. Although successes can be found in every placement strategy, there is no compelling research support for any one........
