Mainstream or Special?

Educating Students with Disabilities

Josephine Jenkinson

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781134796076
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

There remains some controversy about how best to meet the needs of pupils with special educational needs. Should they be educated in mainstream schools alongside their peers, or does this mean that specialist help and resources are denied to them? This book explores in depth the ways in which this problem has been tackled in Australia, the UK and Canada. It looks at the major issues which have been raised and the types of provisions and resourcing which have been offered, and then goes on to provide a vision of how future education provision might look for pupils with special educational needs.

Part I

Issues and outcomes in special education

Chapter 1

Introduction

The scene is a classroom of eight- and nine-year-olds in a school in a large provincial city. The lunch break is not far off, and the children are playing a miming game. One child mimes an activity, and the others try to guess what the activity is. ‘Who would like to be next?’ asks the teacher, Ms O’Brien (not her real name). Hands shoot up, Monica’s among them. ‘Would you like a go, Monica?’ asks Ms O’Brien. ‘Yes, Monica, give Monica a go!’ chorus the children. Ms O’Brien beckons to Monica and whispers in her ear. Without a word, Monica lies down on the floor and closes her eyes. ‘I know, I know!’ volunteers another child, ‘she’s pretending to be asleep.’ ‘Yes, that’s right; good girl, Monica! Back to your place now,’ says Ms O’Brien, and Monica returns to her seat, obviously pleased with her part in the game.

What is special about this scene? Monica has Down syndrome and has been assessed as having a severe intellectual disability. Her language skills are very weak: she has only two or three words of speech. At twelve, she is older than the other children in her grade, although not much bigger. Twenty years ago, most students with Down syndrome would have attended a day training centre for people with intellectual disability, segregated from the mainstream of education. But Monica is part of an integration programme in her district and attends a mainstream primary school full-time. She is unable to cope with the academic skills that other members of the class are learning, but she participates in most of the other activities in the classroom. Much of her behaviour has been learned from observing and imitating the children around her, and superficially at least there is little to distinguish it from that of the other children with whom she mixes. Monica’s classmates realise her limitations and make allowance for her disability. They are usually kind and helpful, ready to show her what to do and often extravagant in their praise for her efforts. Despite her disability, integration appears to be working well for Monica.

But is it? Later in the playground, other children are clambering noisily after each other over a monkey bar, jumping a skipping rope or throwing and catching a ball. Lacking adequate motor skills for these activities, Monica drifts aimlessly around the playground on her own, not consciously rejected, but for the moment forgotten by the other children in the exhilaration of their play. Ms O’Brien worries about whether she is doing the right thing for Monica. She admits to being unsure about Monica’s educational needs and her capacity for learning. There are thirty other children in the class who need her attention; two or three are significant underachievers and another two are from homes where a language other than English is spoken. Monica spends much of her time in the classroom working on ‘readiness’ activities and worksheets that the prep grade teacher has provided. Many of the activities seem too juvenile for a twelve-year-old. Ms O’Brien is frustrated by Monica’s lack of progress in even the most elementary of pre-reading and number skills.

The principal believes that Monica should be with her age peers in a higher grade, but fears she may not cope with the more formal atmosphere and tougher demands of the Grade Six classroom. Monica’s mother is anxious about the future, especially as Monica reaches puberty. She cannot see how Monica will survive in a secondary school. She is concerned that Monica may be missing out on learning some of the essential skills for adult functioning that she would have acquired in a special educational setting, but that are taken for granted in the mainstream school. But for the present, Monica seems happy at school, and her mother is pleased with her behaviour and the way she seems to be accepted by the other children.

Monica is not necessarily typical of all students with disabilities, nor does her classroom placement represent the norm for children with disabilities who have been integrated into the mainstream. In fact, the scene I have described took place some years ago, when our understanding of integration and the resources necessary for its support were far less than they are today. In a way, Monica was among the pioneers at the start of two decades of rapid and radical change in our perceptions of special education. But her situation illustrates the many dilemmas faced by both parents and educators in seeking to provide for the education of students with special educational needs. Children with disabilities need the companionship of their typical age peers; they need the same experiences of achievement and opportunities to grow into adolescents and adults who have interesting and satisfying lives. Above all, they need to develop self-respect and a sense of belonging. But to achieve these goals, they need a great deal of support, often far beyond that provided in most classrooms.

In the past twenty-five years extensive practical experience has accumulated in the integration of students with disabilities into mainstream education. An expanding body of research has identified and described factors that help to make integration effective. There has been wide theoretical discussion, although often driven from an ideological perspective rather than from a realistic understanding either of the needs of students with disabilities, or of the social and psychological forces which have prompted the debate in the first place. Ideologists on both sides have left little room for individual choice. There have also been changes in mainstream education which have an impact on provision for special education. Yet, despite the push towards integration, in many western countries such as Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom, substantial numbers of students with disabilities remain in segregated educational settings. In some cases, schools have not taken up the challenge to adapt to meet the needs of these students; in others parents have shown a reluctance to move away from the settings that have provided so much support for their children. There are also many outstandingly successful integration programmes. At the same time, reports of large increases in numbers of students receiving special education in both segregated and integrated settings, of students being pressured into mainstream enrolment without adequate resources, of inequities in allocation of funding, and of budget ‘blow-outs’ in integration programmes, pose dilemmas for both educators and families.

Adding to this complexity, the debate about integration, originally concerned only with students who had mild disabilities or sensory and physical impairments, now includes students with severe and multiple disabilities—students who have hitherto been quite outside the experience of mainstream education and regular class teaching.

The concept of disability is one that arouses emotions in all of us. By the time a child has reached school age, many parents have become involved with an often confusing range of services designed to address the needs of their son or daughter who has a disability. To their emotional strain may be added conflicting advice about educational options from a number of different sources, some of whom have vested interests in perpetuating their own form of educational provision. Others may view the child’s needs from the limited perspective of their professional orientation, or lacking knowledge of either the child’s potential for development or the ways in which that potential may be achieved. Parents are subject to many pressures and may find it difficult to resist well-meant but ill-informed advice from people they perceive to have greater knowledge or expertise than themselves. Options are often presented in value-laden terms that leave little room for consideration of alternatives. My purpose therefore is to provide material for informed discussion and decision making about educational options, in recognition that no single option is ideal for all individuals, rather than to promote one particular view. I do, however, have one view to push, and that is that education, including special education, cannot remain static. We live in a society that is constantly changing, and rather than feel threatened by that change, we should seek ways of making the changes that are currently taking place in education work to the advantage of all students, including those who have disabilities.

In this book, I will not attempt to resolve the dilemmas faced by either educators or parents—indeed, each child has individual needs, and each family has its own set of values and circumstances. The choices parents make about the education of their son or daughter who has a disability must be made in the light of those values and circumstances and in relation to available provisions and resources. Nor do I attempt a comprehensive review of special education. This is primarily a book about options in special education and their advantages and disadvantages, in part based on real-life situations drawn from my own observations and discussions in Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada, and in part on the special education literature. Along the way, I provide some historical background to the changes taking place in special education, I try to explain some of the catch phrases and ‘movements’ that have influenced or characterised these changes, I discuss curriculum issues and some of the supports needed by students with disabilities to gain access to curriculum, and examine the needs of students with severe and multiple disabilities in education. I have included a chapter on research issues because I believe that decisions in special education should be informed, although not necessarily determined, by the results of systematic, scientifically based investigation. At the same time, I believe it is important to realise that research in special education has unique problems, and does not necessarily provide answers to the many questions that parents and educators face. Finally, I examine current trends and practices in Australia and overseas, and attempt to identify a future role for special education.

SOME TERMS USED IN THIS BOOK

Throughout the book, I refer to ‘students with disabilities’ as those students who have an identified disability—whether intellectual, sensory, physical or emotional, or some combination of these—that in some way creates a special educational need. That is, the student needs resources or support in addition to those provided to typical students of his or her age group to gain access to education. The need for support is usually recognised in the provision of additional funding for the education of these students, reflected in a variety of ways such as a reduced student—teacher ratio, or provision of special equipment. From time to time, I also refer to students with a specific disability, such as a hearing impairment, or an intellectual disability. This is not to either endorse or reject a categorical approach to disability, or to support a view that students who have a disability-related educational need should in any way form a separate category from those who do not have such needs, or whose special needs are in some way less significant. It is rather to avoid the confusion that results from what the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1994) referred to as the ‘new language’ of special education. Terms such as ‘learning difficulty’, ‘learning disability’ or ‘student with special needs’ have different meanings in different countries—indeed, even within Australia there is variation between states in their interpretation of the terms ‘learning difficulty’ and ‘learning disability’. Although these terms are intended to remove the focus away from the disability and its implications for individual functioning, and on to the educational provision needed by the student, their use also creates a risk that important needs may be overlooked in the interests of emphasising the similarities between students with disabilities and their more typical peers.

Interpretations of concepts such as ‘integration’, ‘mainstreaming’, ‘least restrictive environment’ or ‘inclusive schooling’ also differ widely both within and between countries. For example, views of integration range from location of a special class on a regular school campus to the individual student as a full-time member of a regular class. In between, integration has also been used to describe as little as half a day a week in the regular class. Others talk about ‘maximum participation’ in the mainstream setting. My own view of integration tends to be enrolment in a regular class, with perhaps minimum withdrawal for therapy or special instructional needs that cannot be met without difficulty or considerable disruption to the regular class. Where I use the term differently it should be obvious from the context, or I will explain its use. I also tend to use the term ‘mainstream’ as synonymous with the regular class setting. In this I differ from some other authors: for example Lipsky and Gartner (1989: 17) who refer to mainstreaming as ‘the provision of opportunities for students labelled as handicapped who are in special education settings to spend a portion of their time in general education’, or Cole and Chan (1990:27) who use mainstreaming to refer to ‘an educational policy that favours the placement of students with disabilities into regular schools’. Interpretations of some other terms, because they have an important impact on special education provision, will be discussed in more detail in this or subsequent chapters.

We also need to ask what is meant by special education. Much of the debate that has occurred in special education over the past two decades has centred on its location. Although it is now widely recognised that what is important in special education is not so much where it takes place, but what takes place, it is also important not to forget that what takes place cannot be divorced from the environment in which it occurs. For example, opportunities for interactions with typical peers are likely to be fewer in the special school compared to the regular school, although simply being in the regular school does not guarantee that such interactions will take place, or that, if they do, they will be frequent and positive.

Fish (1989) wrote of special education in terms of the nature of provision in special schools and classes, but found it difficult to be precise because of the variety of provisions that could occur in these settings. Biklen (1989) described special education somewhat negatively as providing a ‘safety valve’ for students who were unable to succeed in the mainstream, or were likely to be disruptive in the regular class. Biklen argued that the function of special education is to identify and remediate individual deficiencies by offering specialist techniques such as language instruction or mobility training or individualised programmes. To this end, additional funding is required to support specialist teaching staff, resources, equipment, transport and so on. School systems must be accountable for how public money is spent, and so in order to receive this funding, a student needs to be identified and labelled as in need of special educational services.

Although many school systems would like to eliminate procedures for identification of students in need of special education, this has proved very difficult without at the same time eliminating provision for these students. The best that can be achieved is to ensure that procedures for identification of students and allocation of funding are as fair and equitable as possible. Biklen (1989), however, believed that assessment for identification implied a decision about placement in the most appropriate setting, and claimed that special education therefore perpetuates segregation of students with disabilities from the mainstream of education, and by implication of society. This assumption can no longer be supported—considerable evidence has emerged that special education can be provided in a wide range of both integrated and segregated settings for all but a few students—those with profound intellectual or multiple disabilities, extreme health needs or severe behaviour problems, for example. Special education might therefore best be regarded in terms of the Warnock Committee’s (1978: Section 3) definition of special education provision as ‘educational provision which is additional to, or different from, the educational provision made generally’ for children of the same age group, regardless of setting.

Chapter 2

Educating students with disabilities

Background and influences

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Traditionally, education for students with disabilities has been provided in segregated schools, classes or institutions, often designed to cater for a specific category of disability. Many of these centres were started by voluntary organisations setting up their own schools for students with a specific disability, and were maintained as governments increasingly assumed responsibility for the education of all students. Thus most special schools and classes were category-based.

Although opinions differ on the reasons for establishing segregated schools and classes for students with disabilities, several advantages were seen in this form of provision. These advantages related not only to practical and economic factors, but also to the perceived effects on both students with disabilities and non-disabled students of an integrated education.

Firstly, it was assumed that economies in the provision of special instructional methods, aids and equipment could be more easily achieved if students with a specific disability such as hearing impairment or physical disability were congregated in a limited number of settings rather than dispersed over many schools. Similarly, specialist teachers could be concentrated in a single school, enhancing the development of professional expertise in a specialised area. There is little doubt that this did occur: some special schools have achieved considerable renown as centres of knowledge and expertise in a particular disability. A further economy was achieved by the fact that ancillary services such as speech therapy and physiotherapy could be provided in one centre rather than being dispersed over schools in a wide area or requiring the student’s withdrawal from classes to attend a specialist centre. In addition, paramedical staff could work in close collaboration with an educational team in a special school.

A second major advantage claimed for segregated education was that students with disabilities could benefit from the smaller classes provided in special schools or units, where they would receive more one-to-one attention and instruction could be pitched at a level appropriate to their needs rather than at the traditional age-grade level that catered for the majority of students. The segregated school was perceived as more supportive and less threatening to students with disabilities than the regular school, encouraging a feeling of security and enhancing the self-esteem of students with disabilities by avoiding continual comparison of their achievements with those of other, more competent, students.

Finally, placing students with disabilities in regular classes was seen as disadvantaging non-disabled students by creating undue demands on teaching and other resources. The post-war population explosion, with large class enrolments, made it even more difficult for class teachers to devote time and energy to exceptional students.

Under these circumstances, a marked increase occurred in the numbers of students receiving special education in some form in most western countries in the 1960s and beyond. To some extent this occurred as education systems assumed responsibility for students with disabilities who had previously been in the care of health services. It also reflected the increased life span of people with disabilities. Although specific forms of provision varied, with some systems favouring special schools, and others favouring special classes, for most students this meant being segregated from their non-disabled peers.

INFLUENCES ON SPECIAL EDUCATION

The movement towards integration of students with disabilities came about as a result of a number of inter-related influences. The first was the principle of normalisation of services for people with disabilities.

Integration as normalisation

The concept of normalisation originated in Scandinavia and was at first applied to services within institutions for people with intellectual disability. The concept implied that the patterns and conditions of everyday life that were available to these people should be as close as possible to those available to the mainstream of society. Wolfensberger (1972) redefined the concept to make it more applicable to people wit...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Issues and outcomes in special education
• Part II Models of educational provision
• Part III Providing for special needs
• Part IV Conclusion
• References
• Index