Inclusion in Sports for Studnets with Disabilities

In the article “Boosting Inclusion for Students with Disabilities” by Allison Fetter-Harrott in 2008 Allison took the inclusion program to another level: sports. This article is more about inclusion of students with special needs into extra circular activities rather than into the classroom. As students, there are laws stating your right to join extra circular activities. Many school districts can have a lawsuit on their hands for not allowing a student to participate in a sport due to the fact that the student might get hurt. Some students with disabilities are required to participate in extra circular activities because it is required in their IEP. An IEP is the students’ individualized education program. Taking six steps can help students with disabilities have a positive experience with after circular activities.

The Basics

The article “Mainstreaming: The Special Needs Child Goes to School” by Kristyn Crow really made me think about the basic line of mainstreaming. This article is about what mainstreaming is, how important it is, and things you can do to help the transition into mainstreaming be easy. Mainstreaming is the process of a child with special needs going to a regular education classroom with other regular education students rather than being in a separate room. Studies have shown that mainstreaming helps the students as they grow older and have a higher success rate. As a parent, there are things you can do to help your child. Keeping in contact with the teacher, making play dates with other students, and teaching your child how to identify bullying are three possibilities for a parent to help. The purpose of this article is to help parents understand more about mainstreaming and a few tips to help them be successful. This article is a few paragraphs long with numbers to show the ways to help your child. This paper will help my thesis by giving me information as to what the effect of mainstreaming is on students, as they get older.

Full Inclusion

I found this article by Sharon Cormwell called “Inclusion: Has It Gone Too Far?”. This article is about the varying needs of students with special needs in the inclusion process. Teachers and parents alike are worried about full inclusion. If a student is included full time in a regular classroom then they could get lost in the curriculum and overseen by the regular education teacher. Some school districts require full inclusion but the government has not made it a law yet. If any sort of inclusion is going to work it takes many provisions and positive attitudes. This article is about the negative effects of full inclusion and how much it takes to make any sort of inclusion possible. In the article they used many outside sources to confirm their views which helps show support to their argument. This article will help support my thesis because it is necessary to decided what is best for the student, not just to dump them into the regular education classroom.

Including Samuel

My friend and I are both education majors and are taking the same class with a different teacher. In her class they watched a movie called "Including Samuel". She loved the movie and said I had to watch it.

I was looking around on the internet for articles about inclusion and a pulled up an article about the movie by Pamela Cotant called “School Spotlight: Film Teaches Inclusion of Students with Disabilities”. It was published in the Wisconsin State Journal in 2009. Cotant’s purpose in this article is to educate people on the positive impact of inclusion of students with disabilities has on a classroom and maybe even an entire school. Dan Habib produced the movie. This movie documents the inclusion of his son in a regular education classroom even though his son has cerebral palsy. Habib visited schools and showed the movie to many middle schools and high schools and got a very positive outcome. Since Habib’s son is so successful in fourth grade, he believes that it is due to the friendships he has made in the regular education class.

This is the type of results that teachers, parents, and peers love to see. Inclusion is a very touchy topic and Samuel was fortunate enough to have a positive outcome of the experience.

More Mainstreaming

As I though more about mainstreaming special education students I wanted to learn more about it. I was looking around and found a blog by Kristen Miller and it was just an article about her personal experiences with the inclusion of special education students in the classroom. She talked about the negative effect it can have on the special education student and also the regular education students. One problem with putting special education students into regular education classes is that they are self conscious of their learning disability. This discourages them to ask questions in class and can cause them to fall behind. Second, students in special education classes have modifications and accommodations it draws attention to them in a negative way. When a student is allowed to use a book or note cards on a test, other students are offended of the special treatment. Also help from the teacher is harder when they are in a class with 35-40 other students.

As an education major, I can see how all of these problems could arise in a classroom. But as a teacher, it is your job to help as much as you can and solve problems in your classroom.

There is always a negative side.

When I was looking over articles about mainstreaming and inclusion of special needs students in regular education classrooms, I found this article by Liz Ford called “Report Backs Special Needs Integration”.

In this article they list a lot of negative feedback about the studies of special needs students in regular education classes. The research done was only with students that had physical, sensory, or communication problems, not students with emotional and behavioral difficulties, which tend to have more problems in a classroom environment. Also there are very few reports that focus on the impact of special needs students on regular education students. The past few years inclusion and mainstreaming has become more of a political issue since governments are encouraging it more. Teachers are still hesitant and want reassurance that it will benefit all students.

Liz talked about so many important points dealing with the inclusion of special needs students. I think that knowing the negative side to an argument is just as important than knowing the positive side. Knowing the negatives and problems with a subject can only help you better it as a whole.

Inclusion of special needs students

In the article Schools Aim for Inclusion with Special Needs Students by Amy Crawford gave me the perfect idea for my topic for my paper for comp.

This article is an over view of how successful inclusion of special needs students in a regular education class. Inclusion of the special needs students helps them feel more excited about school and also helps them make friends. Since they are around their peers they want to do better and learn more in the classrooms. It stated that some critics are saying that mainstreaming special education students can be dangerous. Students with serious learning problems can be left to fend for themselves in a regular class. But with co-teaching, this problem can be eliminated. Having a regular education teacher and a special education teacher helps them pick out the students having more problems. Mainstreaming is now becoming more and more known in school districts and helps the students increase their confidence.

Learning Disabilities

I was looking around on the internet for articles about special needs and I found one by Richard D. Lavoie about controversial treatments for kids with LD (Learning disabilities).

This article is about different treatments to avoid if you’re a parent of a child with a learning disability. If your child has a learning disability it is easy to get drawn into the propaganda stating they will help your child. Watching out for name calling of other products, glittering generalities, guilt, and the bandwagon. The only thing that will help your child is hard work from the parents, the teachers, and the student.