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Inclusion and Support Strategies

As you may recall from Core Competency Area 5: Supporting the Teaching and Learning Environment, students with disabilities are increasingly receiving supports and services in general education settings. This type of setting is called inclusive education, as compared to a model of segregated special needs education.

Inclusive education means:

• Educating children with disabilities in the same school that their brothers, sisters, and neighbors attend.
• Using new educational concepts and practices such as cooperative education and assistive technology to facilitate the inclusion process.
• Inviting those who have been left out (in any way) to participate, and asking them to help design new systems that encourage everyone to participate to the fullest of their capacity as partners and members of the community.
• Providing individuals who have disabilities with the support they need to be successful within their peer groups.

Not only is it important that all students have access to a free and appropriate education, it is also important that students with disabilities have the same opportunities as other students. This means access to both educational programs and extracurricular activities. Schools cannot automatically exclude a child from any school program solely because the child is receiving special education services. Based on the same notion that separate programs for racial minorities were inherently unequal, the courts have said separate programs for students with disabilities may provide reduced opportunities and cause extra hardships for families. Regular education programs should serve special education students if possible, and the school should provide access to the same programs provided to other students.

Here is a list of strategies and techniques that promote inclusive classrooms and will benefit students with OHD:

Services and physical accommodations

• Services needed to support the student (e.g., health, physical, occupational, and/or speech therapy).
• The individual’s student health needs are considered regarding field trips, job placement, and other educational activities required for inclusion of children with special needs.
• Accommodations to the physical space.
• Equipment to meet the student's needs (e.g., toys, building and playground facilities, learning materials, assistive devices, etc.).
• Teachers and students can make simple changes to furniture, shelves, and materials in order to improve accessibility. The physical environment can have a universal design to provide access to the entire school and to all educational resources for all students. This means physical facilities may be modified, including hallways, ramps, and bathrooms as well as instructional materials (e.g., adapted keyboards, books on tape, etc.).

It is increasingly challenging to meet the complex medical and support needs of students with OHD. However, several programs around the country that include students with significant health-related disabilities in activities with other students demonstrate that it can be done successfully. Review the resources listed below to learn about these thriving social, educational, and community inclusion programs.

Resources

Educational Inclusion

• http://ici.umn.edu/products/resourceguides.html#ie
  Five resource guides related to inclusive education are available from the Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota.
• http://ici.umn.edu/products/curricula.html#ie
  Four curricula related to inclusive education are available from the Institute on Community Integration, University of Minnesota.

Social Inclusion

• http://ici.umn.edu/products/impact/162/default.html
  This issue of the Impact newsletter from the Institute on Community Integration at the University of Minnesota, is devoted to social inclusion.

Community Inclusion

• Marsha Forest Centre
  http://www.inclusion.com/forestcentre.html
  Resources on community inclusion developed by the Marsha Forest Centre, a registered Canadian charitable organization formerly known as the Centre for Integrated Education and Community. Founded in 1989 to foster the development of inclusion, the centre focuses on the development of future leadership for inclusion through the creation of programs, materials, and research that will create a world where everyone belongs. The centre was renamed after its founder’s death in 2001.
• Inclusion Press
  http://www.inclusion.com/inclusionpress.html
  The Inclusion Press in Canada creates person-centered resources for training events, public schools, high schools, community colleges, universities, human service agencies, health organizations, government agencies, families, and First Nations (Native American) organizations.

References  

Information for this unit was used with permission from:

Institute on Community Integration. (n.d.). Para eLink Core Competency Area 5: Supporting the Teaching and Learning Environment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota. Retrieved June 30, 2006, from http://ici2.umn.edu/elink/5k3b/c5k3b_intro.html

The Para eLink is sponsored by the Minnesota Paraprofessional Consortium, in collaboration with the Minnesota Department of Education, located at the Institute on Community Integration in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota.

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