Introduction - SPE 300

Objectives

Assignments

History

Terminology

Notes
 

 

 Objectives:
  • Define inclusion and describe three variations.
  • Define "general education" and "regular classroom" as used in the literature and court cases.
  • List the important aspects of the regular education initiative and its prominent advocates.
  • List intended and unintended effects of federal legislation on the local education agency.
  • Describe the impact of the National Association of State Board of Education (NASBE) on the inclusion movement.
  • Summarize the effects of litigation in promoting inclusion.
  • List the major elements of IDEA 97.
  • Describe the major objections to inclusion advocated by prominent national professional organizations.
Assignments and activities:  (Note:  All papers must be done in APA style) 
  • Read Chapter 1  in your online text and the content on this web page. Be sure to listen to the audio history, which is very informative.
  •      In your own words, write a paragraph that summarizes you understanding of the meaning of inclusion     (5 Points).
  • Summarize (5points)
      Least Restrictive Environment
      Individual Educational Program (IEP)
      Nondiscriminatory Assessment
      Due Process Procedures
      Related Services 
  • Send a brief biography (5 points). 

    • Total Points 15

In the language of the law, a school district is referred to as an LEA, an acronym for Local Education Agency or the organization responsible for the education of a child.

Notes:

The terms "exceptional" and "disabled" have been used in education for many years to mean different from "normal." Use of these terms here is more convenient than scientific, because they encompass a great many types of conditions and have educational, medical, or legal meanings used to describe and define people.  There are many terms in the literature, old and new.  Quite literally hundreds of terms are used, and to confuse matters more, different terms are used to refer to the same children across different legal jurisdictions according to the prevailing laws.  For example, emotional disturbance in one state may be referred to as behaviorally disturbed or disordered in yet another.  If the same child were to move from state to state, the underlying condition of the child that causes him or her to be "labeled" would not change, but the terminology applied to the child could change many times.  Furthermore, the child classified as having behavior disorders or emotional disturbance may also have descriptors applied that are used in other categories, such as hyperactive.

In this era when it is wise to use caution in the use of labels, what some call politically correct (PC) speech, the terminology used in special education is an important issue.  When P.L. 94-142 was passed, children with disabilities were referred to as handicapped.  The term handicap has since been changed in the law and replaced with disabled.  Moreover, the preferred way to use the term is to say "The child with a disability" rather than "The disabled child."  This is known as the "people first" movement.  While it is awkward to write "a child with a disability" instead of saying "the disabled child," the "learning disabled child," the "visually impaired child," and so forth, most text books are carefully edited to maintain the "people first" rule.  It sometimes generates peculiar sentence structure, such as the student with blindness instead of the blind student.

Part of the difficulty with such terminology relates to cultural attitudes toward the exceptional individual (or the individual with an exceptionality).  Some terms connote culturally acceptable qualities and some are socially unacceptable or undesirable.  If the qualities ascribed by the culture are so negative that use of a term is undesirable, the term will be changed.  There has never been a movement to change the term "Gifted," in fact many articles put gifted first, as in the gifted child rather than a child with giftedness.  It is not desirable to be regarded as "stupid" "dumb," or incompetent in the American society, but these are the lay equivalents of certain terms used to describe exceptional children who have below average intelligence.  There is a continuum that can be used socially in understanding the terms, ranging from deviance to incompetence.  We fear deviants and tend to have sympathy for the incompetent.  Having cerebral palsy is an accident, something that could happen to anyone; being a drug user is willful violation of social norms and the law.  In the first case, we can have empathy for the person with cerebral palsy, because we recognize it could have happened to us or anyone else.  In the latter case, most people would not have empathy for the drug user, who chose to take an illegal and destructive path, albeit true that after getting addicted the user may want to quit but finds it nearly impossible to do so.  The transformation of "drunkenness" to "alcoholism" is an interesting illustration, for in the past "drunks" were people who willfully wasted their money on "demon drink," but the campaign to characterize the condition as a disease has changed the societal impression considerably.

After a time, legal or educational terminology may acquire negative connotations.  For example, at one time persons with below average intelligence were legally referred to as "idiots," "imbeciles," and "morons."  These were perfectly acceptable terms developed by professionals to describe certain kinds of classifications.  But it eventually became necessary to abandon these terms for others that did not carry the social stigma that became attached to them, such as the "little moron" jokes of over 40 years ago.
Calling someone an "idiot" today is interpreted as an insult.  For many years the term "mental retardation" was used with "severe," "profound," "trainable," and "educable" attached as descriptors, but mental retardation has now taken on a negative social stigma.  The American Association for Mental Retardation changed its name to the American Association for Mental Deficiency, and the Association for Retarded Citizens now simply refers to itself as the ARC.  Even the term deaf or hearing impaired may be rejected by some people, much as the term "crippled" was once acceptable but gradually became undesirable.

In society an individual may be referred to by friends or enemies in any number of ways, such as "smart," "tough," "sneaky," "creepy," "funny," "weird," "nice," and so forth.  These rather fuzzy terms are used in the context of social conversation to imply something or to characterize an individual because they have a shared meaning among the group.  "Funny" can mean someone who makes you laugh and also one who is a "little strange" in some way.  These terms are also subjective; one person's "good looking" is another person's "plain."  In education a great deal of effort is put into development of terms and criteria because they have legal implications.  Labeling a child is a very serious concern because, although it may provide the child with services and benefits that would otherwise be unavailable, it may also cause the child to be harmed in some way because of social stigma associated with the terminology.  Labeling preschool and young children is fraught with dangerous implications for the child and the child's family.  Expectations may be created that may come true because of the label (the Pygmalion effect).

To consider many disabilities it is necessary to think of them as "statistically" (quantitatively) or "qualitatively" different, often indicating that the difference is so significant that there may be benefits from some special kinds of programming, but only if they person is labeled officially in order to meet legal requirements and justification.   As a statistical term, "different"  simply means that someone is significantly disparate from average in some way.  A very tall person, such as over seven feet, is statistically different from most people.  A child who cannot see is quantitatively deviant too, because the difference can be measured.  In every type of disability the key to understanding the basis for the classification is to recognize that there is a significant deviation or departure from the average judged by criteria or professionals in keeping with legal definitions.  Thus, children can deviate intellectually (retarded and gifted), sensorially (hearing and vision impaired), physically (orthopedic disabilities), in health, and other ways.  But even these distinctions provoke considerable debate among professionals and there is a constant pressure to change or add or even eliminate terminology.

The incidence of various classes of disabilities varies greatly, depending on how the conditions are defined, the practices of the examiners, and the characteristics of the community.  A certain uniformity in terminology was achieved with passage of P.L. 94-142 in 1975, The All Handicapped Children Education Act.  This was a significant piece of federal legislation in the United States, and P.L. 99-457, The Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986, extended services from birth to five.  This provides incentives for increasing the number of preschool children served by providing federal assistance.  P.L. 101-336, The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), was signed into law in July of 1990.  ADA is a basic civil rights law for persons with disabilities that extends to people with disabilities the same civil rights enjoyed by others through the Civil Rights Act of 1964.   The act provides for protection in employment, public accommodations, telecommunications, and transportation.  All three laws have some impact on preschool programming, but the most significant are P.L. 94-142 and P.L. 99-457.

The major intent of P.L. 94-142 and its Amendments was to ensure that every student with disabilities is provided with a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment.  This law has been amended again, as noted in Chapter 1 of your readings and is referred to as IDEA 97 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) Amendments of 1997.  The original law (P.L. 94-142) addressed these issues::

IDEA has revised and expanded these concepts as follows: Least Restrictive Environment.  A continuum of services should be made available for disabled children, and each child's placement should be carefully considered so that it is as close to the regular class placement as is appropriate for that child's needs and abilities.  Self-contained placement or placement in a class with nondisabled children are determined by decisions dictated on the basis of the child's needs rather than on set policies.  The least restrictive environment is not a particular place but the best placement for a particular child.

Individual Educational Program (IEP).  IDEA 97 requires that an individual educational program be developed for each child, which includes these parts:

Additionally, there are requirements about who participates, the procedures to follow, and timelines.

Emphasis on Involvement of Regular Teachers.  If a child has more than one regular education teacher, the school may designate which teacher (or teachers) will be on the IEP team;

Definition of Disabilities.  IDEA 97 defines disabilities as mentally retarded, hard of hearing, deaf, speech impaired, visually impaired, seriously emotionally disturbed, orthopedically impaired, other health impaired, deaf-blind, multi-handicapped, or as having specific learning disabilities, who because of these impairments need special education and related services, and includes
traumatic brain injury and attention deficit disorder & attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.


Nondiscriminatory Assessment.  The law mandates that instruments and procedures must be used that do not discriminate racially or culturally.

Due Process Procedures.  Due process includes the right to examine the records, obtain an independent evaluation, receive prior notice before a change in an IEP or program, and a right to disagree with and appeal a decision made by the school.  This provides parents the option of requesting a due process hearing, conducted by an impartial hearing officer, in which both parties to the disagreement present their side of the conflict.

The essential elements of due process of law are notice, an opportunity to be heard, and the right to defend in an orderly proceeding, guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution.

Related Services.  Related services include transportation and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services as are required to assist children to benefit from special education:  speech pathology and audiology, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy, recreation, early identification and assessment of disabilities in children, counseling services, and medical services for diagnostic or evaluation purposes, school health services, social work services in schools, and parent counseling and training.

Classifications of Disabilities

The classification of children with disabilities has remained relatively constant since the original law, although some new ones have been added .  The gifted and talented are officially excluded in the law, although this category is often included in courses on special education.  There are 13 specific categories of disabilities (note Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is not included): .

Autism: A developmental disability significantly affecting verbal and nonverbal communication and social interaction, generally
evident before age 3, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. Other characteristics often associated with
autism are engagement in repetitive activities and stereotyped movements, resistance to environmental change or change in daily
routines, and unusual responses to sensory experiences. The term does not apply if a child's educational performance is
adversely affected primarily because the child has a serious emotional disturbance as defined below. Autism was added as a
separate category of disability in 1990 under P.L. 101-476. This was not a change in the law so much as it is a clarification.
Students with autism were covered by the law previously, but now the law identifies them as a separate and distinct class
entitled to the law's benefits.

Deafness: A hearing impairment so severe that the child cannot understand what is being said even with a hearing aid.

Deaf-blindness: A combination of hearing and visual impairments causing such severe communication, develop-mental, and
educational problems that the child cannot be accommodated in either a program specifically for the deaf or a program
specifically for the blind.

Hearing impairment: An impairment in hearing, whether permanent or fluctuating, that adversely affects a child's educational
performance but that is not included under the definition of deafness as listed above.

Mental retardation: Significantly subaverage general intellectual functioning existing concurrently with deficits in adaptive
behavior. And manifested during the developmental period that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Multiple disabilities: A combination of impairments (such as mental retardation-blindness, or mental retardation-physical
disabilities) that causes such severe educational problems that the child cannot be accommodated in a special education
program solely for one of the impairments. The term does not include deaf-blindness.

Orthopedic impairment: A severe orthopedic impairment that adversely affects educational performance. The term includes
impairments such as amputation, absence of a limb, cerebral palsy, poliomyelitis, and bone tuberculosis.

Other health impairment: Having limited strength, vitality, or alertness due to chronic or acute health problems such as a
heart condition, rheumatic fever, asthma, hemophilia, and leukemia, which adversely affect educational performance.

Serious emotional disturbance: A condition exhibiting one or more of the following characteristics, displayed over a long
period of time and to a marked degree that adversely affects a child's educational performance:

    An inability to learn that cannot be explained by intellectual, sensory, or health factors
     An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers or teachers
     Inappropriate types of behavior or feelings under normal circumstances
     A general pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression
     A tendency to develop physical symptoms or fears associated with personal or school problems.

This term includes schizophrenia, but does not include students who are socially maladjusted, unless they have a serious
emotional disturbance. P.L. 105-17, the IDEA Amendments of 1997, changed "serious emotional disturbance" to "emotional
disturbance." The change has no substantive or legal significance. It is intended strictly to eliminate any negative connotation of
the term "serious."

Specific learning disability: A disorder in one or more of the basic psychological processes involved in understanding or in
using language, spoken or written, that may manifest itself in an imperfect ability to listen, think, speak, read, write, spell, or do
mathematical calculations. This term includes such conditions as perceptual disabilities, brain injury, minimal brain dysfunction,
dyslexia, and developmental aphasia. This term does not include children who have learning problems that are primarily the
result of visual, hearing, or motor disabilities; mental retardation; or environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.

Speech or language impairment: A communication disorder such as stuttering, impaired articulation, language impairment, or
a voice impairment that adversely affects a child's educational performance.

Traumatic brain injury: An acquired injury to the brain caused by an external physical force, resulting in total or partial
functional disability or psycho-social impairment, or both, that adversely affects a child's educational performance. The term
applies to open or closed head injuries resulting in impairments in one or more areas, such as cognition; language; memory;
attention; reasoning; abstract thinking; judgment; problem-solving; sensory, perceptual and motor abilities; psycho-social
behavior; physical functions; information processing; and speech. The term does not apply to brain injuries that are congenital
or degenerative, or brain injuries induced by birth trauma. As with autism, traumatic brain injury (TBI) was added as a separate
category of disability in 1990 under P.L. 101-476.

Visual impairment, including blindness: An impairment in vision that, even with correction, adversely affects a child's
educational performance. The term includes both partial sight and blindness.

Actually there are better ways to group the official categories than presented in the law: namely, as deviations by levels of intelligence, by sensory disorder, and so forth.  For example, one way of conceptualizing some children is to consider them as deviating intellectually, principally in terms of measured intelligence quotients.  Thus, at one end of the continuum are children with exceptionally high intelligence scores and at the other end are those with exceptionally low intelligence scores.   Unfortunately, this is not as simple and clear cut as it seems.  Children with very high scores differ considerably as do those with very low scores.  There is also considerable controversy surrounding the use of intelligence tests and IQ scores.

Similarly, children can be classified on the basis of "qualitative" deviance from norms.  A child who is blind or visually impaired (terms that are used interchangeably) or who has a hearing disorder is different from norms on the basis of a sensory deficit.  Other distinctions can be made on the basis of differences in emotional functioning, health disorders, and other traits.

Confusion Over Labels

Mental retardation, learning disabilities, and emotional disturbance are descriptions of behaviors ascribed to children with certain characteristics.  They are not true conditions like a disease.  Although research may identify specific, clear-cut characteristics to discriminate various conditions and learning disorders, for now it is best---especially with young children---to only reluctantly accept such labels as mental retardation or learning disabilities.  The greatest danger is that the teacher, the child, and the parents will develop lowered expectations.

There are, of course, certain medical conditions served in special education, and this may suggest that all conditions have the same scientific status.  For example, by using precise measures, medical tests, and accepted criteria, it is possible to determine the extent to which children cannot hear or see.  Where non-medical conditions are regarded similarly as actual medical diagnoses, there is a tendency to regard them in the same manner. But learning disabilities, emotional disturbance, and mental retardation are not truly medical conditions, at least as presently defined.

Emotional disturbance and mental retardation are especially difficult because children who are diagnosed in these categories may also have clusters of independent medical problems.  The typical child classified with mental retardation will perform poorly in school but will be able to live a successful life in the community.  More severely retarded children have a variety of medical problems in addition to extremely low academic abilities.

Children with emotional disturbance may be those who are exceptionally unruly but who acquired unacceptable behaviors from the environment or from child rearing practices.  There is noting medically wrong.  But there are also children in the same category whose genetic conditions make them disruptive in behavior or to have noticeably different affect.

The most important consideration from the school's point of view is that mentally retardation, learning disabilities, and behavioral disorders/emotional disturbance have more similarities than differences (Smith, Price, & Marsh, 1986).  They are essentially tested with the same instruments, placed in programs that differ only marginally, and receive nearly identical instruction and treatment.  Thus, in recent years these youngsters have been grouped together under the label of "mildly disabled" for educational programming.  Several states have such programming, although these categories are not recognized in federal law.

Labeling Preschoolers

With the inclusion of preschool programs, similar procedures for identification and assessment of infants and toddlers will be followed as used for school-aged children.  Although labels are not required, the law requires assessments to be made.  As noted in the chapter on assessment, the danger exists that labeling young children will be detrimental and providing them with services but no official label may also be a problem because some informal label will be attached.

Assessment of infants and young children concentrates on developmental milestones in motor, language, and social behaviors.  Aside from potential harmful effects of testing, labels of learning disabilities should be strictly avoided because the definition is based on a discrepancy between achievement and ability in academic areas.  If a child of 2, 3, or 6 is not reading, this is not a problem.  It would be premature to label such a child as learning disabled until the child has had an opportunity to learn to read.

Current Social and Economic Factors Affecting Education

Only 25% of taxpayers have children in schools and the other 75% are affected by media reports about education that are largely inaccurate.

James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, essays 10 and 51, explained that politics brings out the worst in people--their selfishness. ("If men were angels, no government would be necessary.")   According to Madison, people use politics to further their particular interests. They inevitably form groups or factions to secure special advantages for themselves, even if it were to the detriment of the public's interests as a whole. Factions adverse to "permanent and aggregate interests of the community."

According to David Matthews (former president of The University of Alabama) of the Kettering Foundation,

The only way to deal with interest groups, he reasoned, was to have so many that no one could dominate all the others. Any faction with particular interests would, in a large republic filled with many factions, be unlikely to take over because others (with opposing interests) would not allow that to happen. The agricultural faction, for example, would not be able to overpower the industrial faction. The more factions the better, so no one could get a permanent majority. The result was intended to be a good government--good in the sense that it would allow citizens the freedom to pursue their own self-interests.
Today, the most influential groups have lobbyists and funding for politicians.  From these groups of organizations we are encouraged to accept guardians of the public interests because they believe that ordinary people are too busy, too incompetent, too out of touch, or too disinterested to participate in self-government.  But it is these groups that also focus on narrow interests, such as abortion, or public funding for religious schools, pro choice, or some specific gender/ethnic/class interest.  Interest groups are formed for that purpose, to advocate for one particular point of view and to put pressure on politicians to advance their causes.

If you find an interest group on the Internet or look at their literature, you will find that they make the claim that interest groups serve public interests by raising issues, educating the public, and spreading information so people can "make up their minds" about issues.  It is also possible to argue that they only make the public aware of  limited options and do not address all aspects of a problem or raise public consciousness.

Some issues are so complex that only a few people know the most of the facts, totally, and they can disagree.  For example, over the last few years there was considerable debate in Congress about raising the minimum wage by 25 cents, with dire predictions that the economy would stumble, many would be laid off, and that there would be increased crime due to people being out of work.  As it turns out, none of these things happened.  But few could have predicted it with certainty.

It is clear there is propaganda put out by some groups because they have the money to get media access that it is impossible for people to hear anything but certain slants on issues.  The public, borne out in opinion polls, generally accepts that education is failing.  There are many reports about dropping scores, crime, misconduct, and so forth.  It can be shown with valid research that this is not true.  Only certain specific schools have poor performance and the average is affected by the extreme scores of those schools that fail.  Most school administrators consider discipline and crime to be non-issues in their schools, but the public believes that discipline problems and crime are rampant.  It is interesting to look at the Gallup Polls and find that people say that schools are doing poorly and having problems, but not the schools their kids attend!  So despite the fact that statistics and some observers argue that our public schools, overall, are doing a good job, most people believe all schools are failing and getting worse.  The demographics today may have much to do with this.

Many people with wealth do not have children in public schools.  And many others want their children in private schools and want to use tax money to support tuition.  This may be the greatest political contention of the next decade concerning education.  While parents may feel accountable for their own children, they may not feel any responsibility for children in general.  As Matthews said:

Unhappily, many Americans no longer believe the public schools are their schools, and yet this isn't a major issue today. On the contrary, all kinds of school reorganization go on with little regard for the effect on the relationship between the public and its schools. However reasonable in their own right, market-based reforms, court decrees, increased financial control by state governments, and professionally set standards may be putting citizens at an even greater distance from the public schools. That is the most alarming implication of more than ten years of research commissioned by the Kettering Foundation on the relationship between the public and its schools. Despite a long tradition of support for public education, Americans today seem to be halfway out the schoolhouse door.
And it is precisely because of this fact that it is possible for powerful lobbyists and special interests groups to make gains by taking sides on issues such as teacher testing, vouchers, higher standards, and so forth.

Current Problems in Special Education Funding

Children and adolescents with learning disabilities account for half of the pupils in special education. The incidence of such children, the costs, and associated administrative and legal requirements have placed a resource burden on public education.  Since 1975, federal funding has been provided for children with disabilities but the federal government currently provides only 10% of special education costs. The shortfall in funding has provoked conflict among advocacy groups, and local districts have embraced "inclusion," placement of children with disabilities in regular classrooms, as one way to deal with increased costs.  Policy makers have unsuccessfully pursued better, less expensive ways to provide special education.

Special education costs per student are about 2.3 times the costs of a regular student (Parrish & Chambers, 1996) and consist of a mixture of federal, state, and local funds. When PL 94-142 was enacted in 1975, the U.S. Congress committed to provide 40 percent of special education funding, but the federal contribution has never been near this level.   In almost every state there are few educational issues more troubling to legislatures than funding methods for special education costs (DeVries, 1998). The mandate to serve students with disabilities costs in excess of reimbursements has forced districts to fund these costs with general funds.  The special education demand is so great that The U.S. Department of Education (1999) reports a critical shortage of personnel to meet the needs of children with disabilities. In 1995-96, more than 4,000 full-time-equivalent special education teaching positions were vacant and the need for related service personnel was seen as even more critical, with over 6,000 vacancies reported.

In New York City, special education accounts for about 25 percent of total educational spending. In Nebraska, school districts have been forced to use general operating funds to cover their growing special education costs. Fiscal problems in special education have stimulated litigation in Michigan, with districts suing the state.  In Pennsylvania the state subsidy covers only 22% of local costs, and districts in New Jersey have asked for emergency funding to support the cost gap.  In California, the funding ratio is 70% state, 25% local, and 5% federal (The Little Hoover Commission, 1997).  In poor districts, which also commonly have more students with disabilities, the local contribution is often higher as a proportion of funding than it is for wealthier districts.  Special education in Massachusetts now exceeds $1 billion a year and in California it is nearly $3 billion annually (Gerwin, 1998).  Conflict over special education in Massachusetts has been especially acrimonious and divisive (Peyton, 1998).  All of these problems will only worsen as the effects of voucher systems and charter schools are felt, because these schools often refuse to accept children with disabilities while diminishing the fiscal base of the districts.

There are questions about the effectiveness of special education in meeting the needs of children. Longitudinal studies show that 74% of children who are poor readers in the third grade remain poor readers in the ninth grade (Francis, Shaywitz, Stuebing, Shaywitz, & Fletcher, 1996).  One reason for this is that many children are not provided with assistance until it is too late.  Currently 5.8 million students are in special education programs and nearly 3 million of them have dyslexia, the most common form of learning disabilities.  Children scoring below the 25th percentile are often identified as reading disabled in the 3rd grade.  The vast majority of these children can be prevented from having persistent, lifetime reading problems, according to the NICHHD.  This can reduce the number of children requiring special education later in the elementary grades and lessen the demand for services.

Assessing Learning Disabilities

Assessment of learning disabilities has usually occurred after children have failed in school, most of them around the 3rd grade.  The basis for establishing a learning disability usually entails finding a discrepancy between a reading achievement score and IQ. The difference between a child with a learning disability in reading and one who is merely a poor reader is often regarded as only a matter of degree (Grossen, 1997), but this must not be the case with a phonemic disorder.  The best predictor of a reading problem is the inability to decode single words (Shaywitz, 1996; Lyon, 1997).   Presumably, children with problems of decoding would be distributed throughout a normal distribution of readers rather than bunched together if the decoding problem were removed.

Remarkably, Lyon (1997) noted that it is possible to detect problems of phonemic awareness with a 92% accuracy using a simple 15-minute test!  Routine administration of such a test followed by appropriate intervention in kindergarten and the 1st grade would be a reasonable thing to do and would cost far less than the vast sums that are expended in the diagnosis of learning disabilities and waiting until the 3rd grade to diagnose children, when it may be too late for many of them to recover.

There is consensus among researchers that reading problems related to phonemic awareness are best attacked with language-based interventions.  This should begin as soon as possible to teach children to differentiate sounds in spoken language and later it is critical that reading instruction proceed on the basis of systematic instruction that deals both with speech sounds and accurate decoding skills.  Waiting until the 3rd or 4th grade to identify and label children with serious problems of phonemic awareness decreases the chances for children to overcome their problems.

It seems clear from the research that half of children will read without any problems, some of them showing up in school already reading.  The other half will have some problems due to a variety of factors including low intelligence, lack of exposure to reading, inadequate vocabulary development, and so forth.  For children with low intelligence it is probably inappropriate to consider them to have reading problems if they are reading below their chronological age.  Apparently some 20 to 30 percent of pupils will have extreme difficulties in initial reading, but this group can be identified and can overcome their problems with phonemic training, good exposure to reading, and good teaching. These children may have neurobiological causes for reading difficulties.  While some of these problems may yield to medication or other medical interventions in the future, the only effective treatment now is early, competent instruction in phonemic awareness and phonic analysis.

Children who are unable to read at the beginning of the second grade are at risk for school failure and dropping out in the future, because about 75% of them will never catch up with their peers to read at grade level. The natural reluctance to "label" young children for special education causes them to fail until the 3rd grade when many of them have an insurmountable lack of achievement.  By then they are so depressed in reading skills that they are unlikely to recover, even with extraordinary efforts.  There is little evidence that special education is successful in overcoming reading disabilities. It is possible to identify children in kindergarten and the first grade with a simple, inexpensive test that requires no sophisticated psychological batteries or specialized personnel, at which time children can receive competent instruction in phonemic awareness skills by kindergarten teachers and reading specialists.  They may then progress in school and escape the labeling process at the end of the primary grades, most of them able to enjoy a fruitful journey through their remaining school years.  The savings in special education costs and wrecked lives would be enormous.

Phonological recoding (i.e., translating a word into its phonological counterpart) combined with word frequency mediates word recognition.  The early advantage for phonics diminishes with time when reading depends on knowing and understanding vocabulary, but children with severe phonemic problems are unable to advance without early and consistent intervention. Reading failure or success is determined by whether or not a child receives instruction that explicitly addresses the connections between letters and sounds (Chard, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1995).  The best treatment is to teach these skills.

Popper (1952) argued that scientific advances are made as theoretical claims are falsified.   The field of learning disabilities has discarded numerous theories and therapies including patterning, process training, perceptual-motor training, visual exercises, aptitude treatment interaction, and dietary regimens. After all these years, what have we learned about learning disabilities?  We have learned that children must be taught to read.

Inclusion

In your textbook there has been considerable discussion about inclusion, or the placement of students with disabilities in the general education curriculum rather than in special classrooms.  While there has been considerable concern expressed by educators, parents, and professional and lay organizations about the potential impact of inclusion on regular education, special education students, and education employees at the elementary and secondary levels, concern has been related more to ideological or philosophical issues than to specific instructional considerations (Reynolds, Wang, & Walberg, 1987; Wang, Reynolds, & Walberg, 1988; Pearman, 1992; Jost, 1994); Shanker, 1994; and the National Education Association, 1994).  In places where inclusion is occurring, every effort must be made to assure that the instructional needs of students with disabilities are not overlooked with the inclusion model.

While the debate about inclusion continues, school systems in almost all states have adopted changes aimed at reducing the number of students with disabilities who are taught outside regular classrooms.  Inclusion is becoming a reality despite what critics may say.  According to the Thirteenth Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of Education of the Handicapped Act of 1990, 4,687,620 children with disabilities were served during the 1988-1989 school year.  Only 24% received special education and related services in separate classes within a regular education building.  The majority of children and youth with disabilities  received special education and related services in settings with non-disabled students.

Most comprehensive long-term studies show that the more time students with disabilities spend in general education, the more socially integrated they become and likely to be affiliated with school or community groups.  As a practical matter, regardless of ideological or personal beliefs, students with disabilities need support and assistance, which they can receive from special education personnel, but there is a great need for general instructional strategies for mainstream teachers to use with students with disabilities.

The emphasis during classroom activities is placed on lesson presentation.  Rosenshine suggested an instructional sequence that proceeds in small steps, involves detailed, redundant oral instruction, punctuated with numerous examples and non-examples, and many questions.  Stress is placed on the teacher's oral instructions in managing the class and presenting the lesson.  The teacher's performance in front of students is critical in accordance with recommended best practices of process-product research.
The process-product literature implies that effective teachers will actively teach classroom rules, follow through on their expectations, monitor compliance, and provide appropriate consequences for behavior (Englert, Tarrant, & Mariage, 1992; Anderson, Evertson, & Emmer, 1980; Brophy, 1983; Doyle, 1986).  The effective teacher is able to manage the school day for maximum instructional time and sustain high-task engagement (Kounin, 1970).  The ability to hear instructions prevents disruptions and disruptive behavior, confusion about expectations, and transitions (Good, 1983).   The heart of instruction is lesson presentation.  Effective teachers make presentations that hold attention, move quickly, and are punctuated with relevant questioning and exchanges (Bickel & Bickel, 1986).  They review, introduce new content, link the content, and provide an organizational framework to help students associate new information (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986; Anderson, Raphael, Englert & Stevens, 1991).  Teachers are also supposed to involve all students in overt responses, while  maintaining a rapid, interesting pace during teacher-led instruction.  Feedback and monitoring are critical (Rosenshine & Stevens, 1986; Rieth & Evertson, 1988).  Most of the teacher's behavior in all of these tasks is centered on verbal exchanges with the class and individual students.  It is imperative that teachers provide explicit instruction, alternative learning modes, and provide individualized supervision of students with disabilities.  A variety of methods of accommodation are described throughout the course modules.

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