: [IEP_guide] Children with mental retardation lucky enough to live in the right place have a

[Guest guest]

Children with mental retardation lucky enough to live

in the right

place have a better shot at success in their education, a new

University of Florida study finds.

Various states in the U.S.

defined and treated mental retardation

differently throughout the 1990s, according to the study, which looks

at the classes in which students were placed in all 50 states and

Washington, D.C.

While some states classified as few as three in every 1,000 students

as mentally retarded, other states identified as many as 30 per

1,000. Since many of those states were demographically similar, the

study suggests the 10-fold difference is based on policy rather than

environment.

" For a student with mental retardation, geographic location is

possibly the strongest predictor of the student's future educational

setting, " said one of the authors, Pam on, a doctoral

candidate in UF's College

of Education.

While some states showed little or no progress in educating mentally

retarded students, others - including Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New

Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Vermont - showed

major gains. Florida

came in as a middle-of-the-road state, showing

no major steps forward or backward.

The states that showed improvement used more " inclusion " classes, in

which mentally retarded children are placed in traditional classes to

learn alongside students who are not mentally retarded. The study

showed that 25 percent fewer mentally retarded students were

separated from their peers in 2000 than they were in 1990. At last

count, about 50 percent of mentally retarded students were in the

integrated classrooms.

The Alachua County

Public School system beats that

average, with

about 65 percent of mentally retarded students in inclusive

classrooms, said Hoppey, a study participant and Alachua County

schools inclusion specialist.

He said all the district's schools offer some type of inclusion

program, and many signed on for additional " inclusion initiatives "

over the past four years. The special programs, happening in 18

schools this year, offer professional training for staff members who

want to target a specific area of study.

The programs are already making a difference in the schools' test

scores.

" When we looked at the end-of-the-year scores school-by-school, we

discovered the schools participating in our inclusion initiative were

making greater gains, " said Kathy Black, the district's executive

director for Exceptional Student Education.

The effect on test scores alone could make inclusion increasingly

popular throughout the U.S.,

said McLeskey, another author of

the study and the chair of special education for UF's College of

Education.

He said the federal No Child Left Behind law requires that all

students' test scores count in school assessments - including those

of mentally retarded students separated into their own classes.

In previous years, schools actually had an incentive to keep the

students in completely separate classes because those classes weren't

counted in their assessment.

" All these students count now, and schools have an incentive to

improve their scores, " McLeskey said. " Inclusion seems to be the best

way to do that. "

In integrated classes, McLeskey said it's not just the mentally

retarded students who benefit. Traditional students learn critical

leadership and tolerance skills and also improve on their test

performances.

And beyond test assessments, on said the inclusive classes

help students with mental retardation prepare to enter the working

world in adulthood.

By being exposed to peers in a general classroom, she said they hone

social as well as academic skills.

The study appears in the spring 2006 issue of the Exceptional

Children journal.

Pakkala can be reached at 338-3111 or pakkaltgvillesun