Inclusion study

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Cheryl in VA

Students with mental retardation make gains in the general classroom,

UF study finds

Filed under Research, Education on Tuesday, August 8,

2006.GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Students with mental retardation are far

more likely to be educated alongside typical students than they were

20 years ago, a University of Florida study has found.

However, the trend once known as " mainstreaming " — widely considered

the best option for such students – appears to have stalled in some

parts of the country, the study's authors report. And a student's

geographic location, rather than the severity of his disability,

often determines how he will spend his school days, the researchers

say.

" We've known for a long time that students with MR (mental

retardation) are better off educationally if they can spend at least

part of the day in a typical classroom, " said McLeskey, chair

of special education in UF's College of Education and an author of

the study. " We've found that there are still lot of students who

could be included in the general classroom but aren't included. "

Before the mid-1970s, most children with mental retardation were

completely segregated from other children in the school system, if

they were formally educated at all. Society widely viewed these

children as uneducable, and those who did attend school were sent to

institutions solely for children with mental retardation.

Both children and their parents often viewed these institutions as

dehumanizing and ineffective – and by the late 1960s, educators had

assembled a large body of research to show that children with mental

retardation did indeed perform much better when schooled, at least

part-time, among the general student population. That research led

Congress to pass a 1975 law requiring a more inclusive environment

for students with mental retardation.

Surveys in the 1980s and early 1990s showed that schools had made

little progress toward implementing that mandate. In an article

published in the spring 2006 issue of the journal Exceptional

Children, UF researchers – including doctoral candidates Pam

on, Hoppey and Tarcha Rentz – revisited the question,

taking a comprehensive look at placement rates for students with

mental retardation in all 50 states and the District of Columbia

during the 1990s. They found some very good news.

" Inclusion seems to have genuinely caught on in the 1990s, " said

on, the lead author of the study. " By the end of the decade,

a student with MR was almost twice as likely to be educated in the

general classroom as a similar student the beginning of the decade. "

In 1990, almost three-fourths of students with MR were educated

separately from their typical peers, learning in separate classrooms

or entire schools dedicated to children with mental retardation. By

2000, only slightly more than half of students with MR were educated

separately.

Still, a handful of states – Idaho, Kansas, Minnesota, New Hampshire,

North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota and Vermont – accounted for much

of the gain seen nationwide, with many other states marking little or

no progress.

A simple move across state lines, the researchers say, can have a

major impact on a child's educational career. Various states have

widely different policies on who can be identified with mental

retardation, and how they are educated. Some states identify mental

retardation in as few as three out of every 1,000 students; others

identify as many as 30 students per 1,000. Demographically similar

states such as Alabama and Mississippi differ widely in their

reported rates of mental retardation – suggesting the differences are

due to policy, not environmental factors.

" For a student with mental retardation, geographic location is

possibly the strongest predictor of the student's future educational

setting, " on said.

Many of these students can have functional work lives in adulthood,

on said. However, if they aren't exposed to their peers in

the general classroom, students with MR may not pick up the social

and academic skills they need to do so.

Inclusion can also have a beneficial effect for students already in

the general classroom. When typical students attend school with

classmates who have MR, the researchers say, they learn leadership

skills and become more tolerant. They even score higher, as a group,

on standardized tests.

" The inclusive classroom environment seems to work better for

students who are struggling, academically, but not identified as

having MR, " McLeskey said. " That tends to bring up averages on test

scores for typical students in the entire class. "

In the current era of high-stakes testing, that effect could work to

the benefit of students with MR. Under past school accountability

rules, many states did not count the scores of students in MR-only

classes when conducting statewide achievement tests – an incentive to

administrators to keep students with mental retardation out of the

general classroom.

Under the No Child Left Behind Act, however, schools must report test

scores of all students, including those in separate special education

classes.

" 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. "

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Credits

Writer

Tim Lockette, 352-392-0726, Ext. 274

Source

McLeskey, 352-392-0701 , Ext. 278

Source

Pam on, 352-213-3945

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