After Preschool Inclusion: Children's Educational Pathways over the Early School Years

Abstract

A complex array of factors influences the implementation of inclusion within educational systems. This article examines decision making regarding young children's participation in inclusive programs. A qualitative design was employed to study influential factors over the course of a 5-year period as children moved from inclusive preschool placements to elementary school. Family, classroom, school, and societal influences were examined through families' perspectives on children's school experiences. At the end of the 5-year follow-along period, 60% of the children remained in some level of inclusive placement. Placements were influenced by professionals' decisions and school options, families' abilities to access information, advocates, the match between family needs and expectations and school options, and the influence of specific child and family characteristics. Downloaded fromI t's really imperative to me that he's in a regular classroom because he learns so much that you're not aware of him learning . . . I don't want to shortchange him. (Mother of Lester, a kindergartner diagnosed with autism) I think we have to try [inclusion]. If it doesn't work . . . then we can always make a change. (Mother of Ella, a first grader with Down syndrome) If he were in a regular classroom, he wouldn't get as much attention as he does now. (Mother of Lenny, a second grader with physical disabilities)These quotations from parents hint at the many factors that influence educational placement decisions for children with disabilities in the early school years. Though the provision of educational services in least restrictive or inclusive environments has been a central goal in recent decades, the decision to place a child in an inclusive or self-contained special education program is seldom a clear cut decision. Rather, these decisions reflect a complex transactional process involving multiple factors that often interact and may change over time. Educational placements and the goals and decisions surrounding placements, thus, are not static phenomena.Inclusion in the early years has been the target of many educational initiatives (Buysse, Inclusion is a complex process influenced by many factors within families, classrooms, communities, and society. An individual child's experience both affects and is affected by her or his family beliefs and values, aspects of the classroom (e.g., curricular activities, teacher's philosophy) and school (e.g., services offered, philosophy), as well as the policies and values espoused in the larger community.Children's placement decisions are rarely made on the basis of a single factor. The nature of decision making with respect to inclusion highlights the complexity of these decisions. Often professionals and parents must weigh a variety of factors in this process. Bailey, McWilliam, Buysse, and Wesley (1998) identified potentially competing factors families must weigh as they consider various educational alternatives; these factors included program quality, availability of specialized services t...

Procedures in Turkey for Guiding Students with Special Needs into Inclusive Settings

“…existence and severity of hearing loss, levels of academic and social competence) at this point for guidance into inclusive settings. On the other hand, the scarcity of research studies in the literature that have concluded with universal, common, and standard criteria to employ during guidance procedures should be noted (Eaves & Ho, 1997;Guardino, 2008;Hanson et al, 2001). The results from these rare studies have produced the following criteria: appropriate student profile for inclusive settings, the age when started using hearing aid technologies (when did they receive the cochlear implant), no accompanying disability, and only a moderate level of hearing loss (Archbold et al, 1998;Çerezci, 2015;Eaves & Ho, 1997).…”

“…The responsibilities of the guidance team are to review students' reasons for applying, to organize meetings concerning guidance into educational settings after educational assessment, and to decide on the educational-setting placement (Strickland & Turnbull, 1993). Hanson et al's (2001) study, which was designed to determine the opinions of parents whose children with hearing loss had been placed within inclusive preschool settings about the process of deciding which educational setting their child would take part in during their primary education years, is one of the studies focusing on guidance procedures in the international literature. They concluded parents, experts, non-governmental organizations, the physical structure of schools, the presence of support services, the attitudes of normally hearing peers, and teachers' professional background/capabilities to affect the placement decision.…”

L’inclusion en service de garde au Québec : la situation d’une étape essentielle

“…Il s'agit notamment des attitudes négatives des principales parties prenantes (Wolery, Brookfield, Huffman, Schroeder, Martin, Venn et Holcombe, 1993;Bricker, 1995), de ratios personnel-enfants trop bas 79 volume XXXIX:2, automne 2011 www.acelf.ca et de l'insuffisance de personnel de soutien (Wolery et al, 1993), du manque de places disponibles (Hanson et al, 2001), de l'accès limité aux ressources et à de l'équipement adapté ainsi que du manque de formation adéquate du personnel (Buysse, Wesley, Keyes et Bailey, 1996;Spivak et al, 2002;Praisner, 2003). Le type et la gravité du handicap peuvent aussi influer sur la probabilité qu'un enfant soit inclus dans un service de garde.…”

Is Full Inclusion Desirable?

“…Other factors that contributed to academic failure in regards to teachers were: not individualizing to meet students needs, overusing instruction instructional assistants, underestimating the effectiveness of explicit instruction and assuming that sitting quietly is an appropriate alternative to participation. Hanson, et al, (2001) state co-teaching should enhance the classroom environment by blending the area of expertise between two professionals. As the two teachers interact, students should gain new perspectives on content and expose themselves to different ways of expressing ideas.…”