Thinking on disability and education....

[andyandy]

Hiya

I'm looking for academic (or just intelligent) discussion/papers/books looking at the debate over disability and education - ie. are children/society best served by inclusive education policies, special schools, twin tracking (a bit of both...) etc etc.

Even more wonderful would be cross-country comparisons esp. with the developing world....though this may be optimistic :)

I've done some cursory googling but it's not thrown up anything as yet.

If you have any opinions you wish to add, that would be fantastic too

Cheers :)

Andrew

[Professor Yaffle]

You might find some relevant stuff using google scholar:

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=inclusion+disability+&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=1

Eg http://sed.sagepub.com/content/30/2/121.abstract

[Dancing David]

depends on the defintion of disability as well....

[andyandy]

You might find some relevant stuff using google scholar:

http://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?hl=en&q=inclusion+disability+&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=1

Eg http://sed.sagepub.com/content/30/2/121.abstract

google scholar - didn't think of checking there....thanks :)

[andyandy]

depends on the defintion of disability as well....

The broadest possible one - looking at learning difficulties, mental health, physical disabilities, and the full spectrum within that as well....

[Lisa Simpson]

I don't have anything scholarly to add, just my own experiences. My son has been in special education since first grade. We tried inclusion in kindergarten, but he's just too disabled. There were two other boys in his kindergarten class whose parents were also trying to see if their kid could be integrated. Personally, I thought those boys were at least as disabled, if not more, than my son. One of the boys has parents who still insist he can pass the California High School Exit Exam. I've known many parents who just can't accept the diagnosis. There was one girl at the school where I work who had Downs Syndrome and she was completely integrated. She never got the one on one attention she needed and she disrupted the other students from learning. But that's what her parents wanted and that's what they got (at least until middle school, she was in Special Ed only there).

[andyandy]

I don't have anything scholarly to add, just my own experiences. My son has been in special education since first grade. We tried inclusion in kindergarten, but he's just too disabled. There were two other boys in his kindergarten class whose parents were also trying to see if their kid could be integrated. Personally, I thought those boys were at least as disabled, if not more, than my son. One of the boys has parents who still insist he can pass the California High School Exit Exam. I've known many parents who just can't accept the diagnosis. There was one girl at the school where I work who had Downs Syndrome and she was completely integrated. She never got the one on one attention she needed and she disrupted the other students from learning. But that's what her parents wanted and that's what they got (at least until middle school, she was in Special Ed only there).

Interesting - you touch on a few key points - esp. questions over who should decide what's best for the kids (sometimes parents don't actually seem best qualified for this....) and the impact (both positive and potentially negative) on other kids in the school. I think the greatest difficulty is with the kids on the borderline - there are undoubted benefits of going to a special school where there are trained professionals and resources specifically catering for that child - though there is definitely a strand within disability campaigning which rejects the idea of special schools. They argue that an inclusive society needs for all kids to be together - and not separated.....

I favour a mixed approach - special school provision for severe disabilities, with the aim (if possible) for providing enough support for some main stream school integration. And for all schools to have dedicated special needs facilities and training to look after kids with moderate disabilities within the school setting....that's pretty much how it works in the UK - there seems to have been a shift away from special schools in the past few years....

[Lisa Simpson]

My son has always been in Special Education programs within a regular school. He has Fragile X Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragile_x_syndrome), by the way. In the US, special schools are only for the profoundly disabled and it's quite hard for parents to get kids in those schools as the home school district has to bear the cost, so the goal is to keep the child within the district if at all possible.

[andyandy]

My son has always been in Special Education programs within a regular school. He has Fragile X Syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragile_x_syndrome), by the way. In the US, special schools are only for the profoundly disabled and it's quite hard for parents to get kids in those schools as the home school district has to bear the cost, so the goal is to keep the child within the district if at all possible.

I think that's pretty much the case here too - it's difficult to know to what extent cost plays a role in government policies for disability provision - special schools are supposedly pretty expensive, but then equally 1-1 support in a mainstream school (which most kids with severe learning difficulties have) can't be cheap. Having a kid with significant disabilities must be pretty tough - the UK at least needs to do a lot more to support parents with a carer responsibility.....

[Dancing David]

The broadest possible one - looking at learning difficulties, mental health, physical disabilities, and the full spectrum within that as well....

well as someone who works in schools inclusion is good but costly.