LEVELS OF INCLUSION EFFECTS DISABLES PRESCHOOLERS

Different Levels of Inclusion Effects Disables Preschoolers

Different Levels of Inclusion Effects Disables Preschoolers

Introduction

The practice of inclusion (i.e., educating children with and without disabilities together) derives from the principle of least restrictive environment and the civil rights movement. Although some parents and professionals call for universal full inclusion (Peck, 1995), others advocate For the maintenance of a continuum of services (Bricker, 1995; Strain, 1995), suggesting that periods of special education-only instruction may at times be beneficial (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1994). However, most current research on service delivery has shifted from questions about the relative efficacy of inclusion to questions about effective inclusion models (Guralnick, 1990; Salisbury & Vincent, 1990). The present study represents a return to the earlier concern, the efficacy of varying degrees of inclusion.

Literature Review

The key issue in this debate is whether the individual needs of some children may be lost when a single approach is applied universally. Because children with disabilities form all extraordinarily heterogeneous population, there are risks in adopting a "one size fits all" philosophy across different subgroups of this population. For example, in a multisite study of inclusion models for elementary-age children with learning disabilities, approximately half of the children showed little or no growth in reading achievement (Zigmond, Jenkins, Fuchs, Deno, & Fuchs, 1995; Zigmond, Jenkins, Fuchs, Deno, Fuchs, Baker, et al., 1995). In contrast, children with more severe disabilities were found to generally benefit from inclusion (Buysse & Bailey, 1993), although the generality of this conclusion has been challenged by MacMillan, Gresham, and Forness (1996). Because preschool children with disabilities also constitute a diverse population, varying broadly in social, linguistic, cognitive, and motor skills as well as in other factors, individual children may respond differently to different educational environments. Thus, studies seeking to uncover best practices must take into account the characteristics of the research participants.

Most research on special education preschool programs has concentrated on group effects, providing information about the average benefit of a practice such as inclusion (Buysse & Bailey, 1993; Lamorey & Bricker, 1993; Odom & McEvoy, 1988). However, there is evidence that subgroups of children may not respond similarly to the same approach. In a previous study involving random assignment to either special education-only classes or integrated classes (i.e., four children developing typically and eight children who qualified for special education services), Cole, Mills, Dale, and Jenkins (1991) found no main effect differences for children in either model, but significant Aptitude X Treatment interactions (ATIs). Specifically, children with disabilities who performed relatively higher on pretest measures benefited more from integrated special education classrooms, while children who performed lower on pretest measures benefited more from special education-only classrooms. These findings suggest that service delivery models may relate to developmental outcomes in more complicated ways than first thought (i.e., interactions between the type of service delivery arrangements and child characteristics). It is possible that the findings of no differences in developmental measures in earlier studies of mainstreaming may have masked ...