Inclusion Question

The main reason this is done is so that the special ed teacher can team teach with this teacher. This way the class has two teachers with more one-one teaching and more help can be provided. I am sure you can have him put in any class but the same level of service will not be there.

Thank you. I realize what they are trying to achieve academicall. However, I still don’t think it is fair to only offer one class as an inclusion class. Aren’t school supossed to address the “whole child”? One inclusion class means that every child on a ed plan does not get the benefit of being with a diverse array of classmates, from year to year they end up with the same group which is not the case for the regular ed students. Its hard enough for sped kids to have a social life, for example my son does not excel at sports and for a boy that is the biggest social event for them. If he is in the same group in the classroom every year he never has a chance to make new friends. Kids spend about 8 hours everday in school, that is where they bond with each other and develope new relationships. How can he broaden his social circle if he is basically with the same group every year because that is the only class for them? Do you see my point?

My daughter was in inclusion last year (yes, there was only one class out of all the 3rd grade classrooms), but I had her pulled out and put in a general ed class. Usually it is by your child’s special ed teacher/resource teacher’s recommendation that your child is placed in inclusion. If they needs LOTS of 1-on-1 and accommodations then inclusion would be the best place for them. My daughter, fortunately, didn’t need it and I felt like they were doing too much “hand holding” in there. It all depends on the needs of the specific student.

In my experience, I would say that this practice (one inclusion classroom) may be a wise one especially if, like Nan says, they would do this to implement the co-teaching with the special ed teacher.

Our district is full inclusion (meaning every teacher teaches inclusion classroom and the ONE special ed teacher floats around from class to class all day). Let me tell you, this is a big mistake if your child needs any level of individual assistance.

I have researched this, and general education teachers are required to take, on average, 1 class on special ed in order to get their certification. This means you will have teachers teaching in inclusion classroom who have no idea how to teach a child with special needs. This has been a total disaster for us for the past three years. Teachers who have no idea how to help my kids so they just cut down the number of problems, less homework, etc. Forget about trying to help them actually develop strategies to overcome their difficulties. They just don’t have the time they say, they have 24 other children to teach.

Hopefully your one inclusion teacher has the proper training and experience. I would ask just to make sure that she is not just the one who drew the short straw and ended up with the class. But if it’s someone who knows what they are doing, has the interest and patience, then I would say you are very lucky especially if they get the sped teacher co-teaching with her/him.

We can’t get a special classroom (small group) which is what we really need. We are very politically correct at our school. YUCK!!!!!!

Having had a child in SE from kgarten through 6th grade
my feelings are inclusion is a huge scam.

We did have an aide stop by once in a while but
in a busy classroom not much gets done.

My son got the most help when he was pulled
out for language.

And what I did at home with hiim.

Anne

I would agree. I think the key when dealing in an advocacy issue is clearly defining what you want and some of the means to achieve this goal. Unfortunately people with any type of disability are still constantly at risk of being discriminated against. The difficulty is the discrimination is camoflauged behind buzz words and sometimes misunderstood but well meaning intentions.

An example of being specific would be I think “being in a inclusive classroom would benefit my son’s social skill development by witnessing appropriate social skills being modeled by his peers of his same age group”. Backing the statement up with any type of professional support (Psychologist, Speech and Language report, etc) fortifying your request. This will provide for less grays for people to speculate and hypothesise the best treatment for your son and less room for them to maneveur due to a higher level of specific goals and information.

I grew up with LD and was in special ed in public school. Upon going to High School my public school principal changed my course calendar for grade 9 without consulting my parents or myself. I was supposed to be in general level courses but ended up in a segregrated classroom, he thought that was the best for me.I left after 10 min and raised hell with the principal of the highschool.

Within 2 hours my course calendar was changed. I went to general level courses. Your son will also have to learn to advocate for himself in the future by being very specific in what he says again backing it up well; but having the firepower to back up what he is saying will help him. I had a Psychological report stating I could perform in an integrated setting. This report I’m sure added credibility to my claim, I went from an angry beligerent student to an angry beligerent student with a psychological report. Big change.

DON”T LET THEM RAILROAD YOUR SON. I had to fight like hell for my rights in school and am a far cry from what they expected me to be. My mom met with the school once to advocate for me. A teacher at the table began to laugh stating “She thinks her son will be OK.” I graduated from College and now am a Rehabilitation Therapist and work in Childrens Treatment Center. Who’s laughing now?

All the best,
Brad

Wow Brad what an inspiring story! Wondering if you could give some advice? My son does not like help, does not like being pulled out, etc. but definitely is not independent in the inclusion classroom. I want him to be able to speak up for himself and tell us what he needs and what makes him comfortable and would be successful intervention with his LDs as well. He is 10 years old and going in to 5th grade. How do I make him a participant in this process without him continuing to feel like the victim. He views all of this as a plot to make him miserable. Also, at this age, do we have to draw the line at the amount he can contribute? Thanks in advance.

Growing up I hated the segregrated classroom I went to every day for about 2 hours. I felt very stigmatised by being centered out as the kid going to “Special Ed”. School was not very reinforcing to me because it was a place I wasn’t typically very successful. The 5th grade was a difficult time for me as I discovered girls and had an additional confusion in my life (still confusing, but I guess that’s normal) and was very self concious of my “image”.

In special ed the recommendations made no sense to me because:
1) The way I thought was normal to me therefore I had no frame of reference to compare my thinking to, to aid in locating my difficulties. I thought I was stupid because I was told that before (teachers, parent) and had a list of grades and failures to back it up. My self esteem was very low and I made up for it by acting out.

2)Special ed recomended that is use a ruler to read to pay better attention to what I was reading and have a big blue communication book that my teacher would write my home work in for me to take home. I read was I was seeing fine, but I couldn’t organise my thought and worst of all couldn’t commuinicate what my problem was because it was normal to me. I couldn’t filter out background noise, developing concepts and was very distractable.

Where your son is concerned having professional assessments done may help to identify areas of difficulty (I.e. audiology, Neuropsychological assessment). Developing insight into your areas of difficulty is a tough one. For me each time I discovered my area of deficit it was like a blind fold being lifted. I discovered while reading the book the Stand at 20 that the book really wasn’t making sense to me then …Wham! I realised there was an organization to writing. Each paragraph had a main point usually in the beginning, the filler in the middle to describe the point and a closing sentence for that paragraph. Once I understood there was a cohesion to the story it made much more sense, it was really enjoyable and I actually retained a majority of what I had read.

Your son also seems unhappy with his LD and that is really understandable. It can feel like you are so different and you are helpless because you don’t know what is wrong. Try and see if he will get involved in something that will make him feel better about himself. I usually perferred individual sports due to worrying about failing in a group activity and I still do.

How much he can contribute is difficult since I don’t know where your sons area’s of difficulty are and how aware of them he is. One thing that may help is the next time he is having difficulty with something in school, homework, etc ask him to try and think why is he having this difficulty (I.e. his mind drifted, doesn’t understand the exercise, too much noise in the classroom). Ask him to start slow as it is very difficult to do, writing out possible reasons on paper usually helped me.
If he likes computers then there are programs that may help him with his homework (Inspirations.com - program for thought organisation, Dragon 5 software that types on the screen what you say into a microphone, Kerzwell 2000 software that highlights things that are being read or will read the info for you). Using them at home first may help him to be able to use them privately to not feel different and begin to master them, then hopefully, if needed eventually at school.

Most of all make sure, as I’m sure you do that he feels good about who he is and having an LD doesn’t mean you are stupid and will go nowhere in life. I am well respected in my field of work, I have my second degree black belt and used to help run a dojo. I also have 2 great kids and a great wife. I’ve met other people with LD over the years who also have been successful in life because they used there LD and challenges to strengthen them as people. I hope in time your son will also do the same.

I hope this helped. If you have any other questions, please let me know.

Thanks Brad

Thank you to all of you for your comments and advice.

Brad: Thank you for sharing your life experiences with all of us! You are truely an inspiration. I think your point is so important about the child being able to express what they feel and want to see happen in their education. The Team at his school were surprised to hear that I gave a copy of my son’s three year evaluation to him to read. He is in 4th grade, he asked me how he did and so I gave it to him to read, we went over it together. We talked about where his strengths were and where his weekness were. He is a very strong writer he scored a grade equivelant 13 on written and a grade equivelant 9 in reading comprehension. His weakness is in visual-spacial intergration and fine motor skills, some scores were as low as grade 1.8. He scored overall on grade level ( his birthday is in Aug-he is the second youngest in his grade). This is why I’m at odds as to why he is in an inclusion class, he will have an aid in there for 1.5 hours every day for language arts and he will be pulled out for 30 mins weekly for OT. I was told that if he is not in the inclusion class he can not be in sped or on an ed plan. Why not? Can’t he be in a regular ed class and just get pulled out for the 30 mins. OT weekly? To me 30 minutes of OT a week is very limited services, the OT is only in the school twice a week so that is as much as they can give him. It just doesn’t seem in his best in to be in a classroom he feels he doesn’t belong in. Also, the school told me that if I pull him out and he slips, I won’t be able to get back in because he doesn’t qualify under the new regs.

I don’t know about any of you other parents, but I always have this fear that what if I make the wrong choice and my child pays the price, what if I do pull him out and can’t succeed? What if I leave him in and he losses all his self esteem, am I better off pulling him out and getting him private help? He has had a tutor for 4 years for reading..look where his on that front now..he couldnt read until the end of 2nd grade. I just don’t know..what I do know is that he is heart broken that he is in a classroom with kids he’d rather not be with because half of them are always in trouble for getting in fights at school, many of them come from disfunctional families and an array of other issues. Please don’t take me to mean that kids on ed plans are all from disfunctional families and the like NOT AT ALL..but many many childern aren’t learning and are distruptive because of lack of support at home and they get put into these classrooms as well as the kids with real LD, and it is just not fair to the kids that just need help academically, they feel stigmatized. Let me add that I make that statement in reference to this particular instance, and to this particular groping of students. Let’s face it we all know that in school kids get slotted into catagories by their peers, the ‘smart kids’, the popular kids, the jocks, the rebels and yes the ‘sped kids’ and I don’t care about people knowing my son receives help at school, and he doesn’t either, but he shouldn’t have to be in a class with kids that have behavioral/social issues. I’m sure I sound very opinionated and I don’t mean to offend anyone but to me it is a real concern that he will be viewed by his peers as being in that class for the wrong reasons.

Boy, do I know how you are feeling. I am wrestling with this one myself. My son really needs to have the specialized instruction but what if I make the wrong choice for him? He feels segregated enough, self-esteem has plummeted in school. We follow full inclusion model with so-called resource room pullout (which consists of child getting attention when sped teacher has time) and my son was placed in a class that had a gifted cluster in it as well (we are very politically correct here, forget about appropriate placement). So, his weaknesses, rather than his strengths really stood out. Disasterous year!

I want next year to be better for him (5th grade). I want him to get what he needs to become independent (which he is not right now) and I think I know what he needs but the school doesnt agree because it will cost them money. I am also a firm believer that it should be happening during the school day, just like everyone else is educated during the regular school day. He should not have to sit through a class he doesnt understand, then go to a tutor after school to redo what was already covered in class but wasn’t done appropriately for him. That is what special education is supposed to be.

I think you are absolutely right, all LD kids are lumped together, most of the time inappropriately. My son who does not have behavioral issues should not have to be subjected to that environment just to get what he needs. The schools tend to group them all together because it is convenient for them.
This is what I fear will happen when I push for what he really needs.

There needs to be a middle ground. A class with children who need what they need without being labled the LD class. Who has to know that Mrs. Jone’s class is that class. As far as everyone else is concerned, its just another 5th grade class. Am I missing something here? Why would this be so difficult to do. All services brought to that classroom, no one has to leave when its “special reading time” in the resource room which happens to be during computer time for the rest of the class. This is just wrong and damaging to these children’s self-esteem especially as they get older and realize what is going on.

Our district was somehow able to create a special math class for “gifted and talented students” in math whose needs where not being met with the regular curriculum. How is that different from the child who cannot read at grade level yet?

OR … .

I have come up with an idea as to what the underlying problem is to the current generalized classroom for elementary school and I think it would solve everyone’s needs and individual situation and would take the pressure off of parents in making such tough decisions, because it is an all or nothing decision that we are asked to make.

In a nutshell, it would be to organized an elementary school like a jr. high. Everyone moves from class to class, getting what they need at the level they need and no one is the wiser. Would this not solve the attention and hyperactivity problems as well, with a constant change, activity? Also, teachers at this level would be able to specialize in what they teach best. I just have a gut feeling that everyone would be happier all around.

Lulu, I thought I was all alone in my thinking…I’m glad I’m not.

Boilerplate meaning one size fits all!

I can’t respond in full right now..but I agree with all of what your saying.
When I have a little more time I’ll catch up with you!

Thank you for this most profound statement that I never thought of :

“In special ed the recommendations made no sense to me because:
1) The way I thought was normal to me therefore I had no frame of reference to compare my thinking to, to aid in locating my difficulties. I thought I was stupid because I was told that before (teachers, parent) and had a list of grades and failures to back it up. My self esteem was very low and I made up for it by acting out.”

YOU ARE SO RIGHT!
And I find your second comment just as interesting and coincidental

2)Special ed recomended that is use a ruler to read to pay better attention to what I was reading and have a big blue communication book that my teacher would write my home work in for me to take home. I read was I was seeing fine, but I couldn’t organise my thought and worst of all couldn’t commuinicate what my problem was because it was normal to me. I couldn’t filter out background noise, developing concepts and was very distractable.

THAT IS MY SON AS WELL!

You really opened my eyes in just those two statements. Fortunately, we have just completed the evaluation with the neuropsychologist and are hoping to really pinpoint other issues and get all of us on the same page to help this precious boy.

Right now he says he does feel stupid and has said that he would rather be dead than have to go back to school.
He has been in private counselling for this because the school said they can’t help us with this.

Thank you also for all of the other advice, it was just as helpful. It was just that these two comments really hit me.
Hope you visit this site often to lend your experienced advice. It is most valuable! Much continued success to you.

Thank you, I’m glad I could help. I was wondering if you would let me know how the Neuropsychological Assessment turns out. I would like to consider it for my son in the future but want to make sure it will be worth while. My guess is that you and hopefully your son will find it very informative. I have read them in my current line of work frequently (acquired brain injury) and am always impressed by how specifically areas of difficulty and strength can be pin pointed.

If you or your son choose not to, I certainly understand since this is very personal information. Good luck with everything and I’m glad I could help. If I can help in any way in the future please let me know.

Well, apparently, the ruler technique is another “boilerplate” approach to helping kids with special needs! That is what they gave as a solution to my son for his reading difficulty too. Since his verbal skills are one of his strengths we didn’t need the blue book! I also see another common thread here, the age and grade: my son is almost 10 and going into 5th grade. I would say we deserve a pat on the back for responding to our children’s needs here. We obviously are very in tune to their emotional developement since it would appear this is typical behavior for their age to their situation in school. As the saying goes..’this too will pass’ We’ve responded to their needs up to this point and done well for them, we will perservier, and they will grow up to be like Brad. I don’t know about your child but I’d bet if you look at the whole picture you’d say dispite his struggles he is stronger than many children his age!
These kids seem to have a way of looking at the glass half full rather than half empty, so when they don’t we begin to panic. I think it is important that we continue to point out their character as one of their strenghts to them too…they have a lot of character.

I don’t mind at all sharing the results and a view on how the whole experience went. We had the verbal report already, still waiting on the written with scores and recommendations for the educational portion.

The neuro end of the report we do not agree with, neither does the pediatrician nor our private psychologist. She (the neuro) has diagnosed him with PDD (closer to Aspergers Syndrome). This was the farthest thing from our minds as being an issue. I never even suspected that he fit the desciption of being on the Autism Spectrum. Social skills are his strength, he is very verbal and is finding most of his successes through sports, which he is very talented in, can follow the games and strategize, etc. She also thinks there is chronic anxiety/depression that needs to be treated with medication and is also concerned that attention problem could be absence seizures. Academically he has profound dyslexia across the board; visual, auditory and tactile as well as memory issues.

We are not sure how she came to the PDD diagnosis. The ped. and psych will read her report and talk to her about it since they are very concerned with her diagnosis as well. All of the academic stuff I really was prepared to hear. I just knew from his emotional state and seeing the psychologist that very serious things were breaking down there.

It feels like such a loooooooooong wait, almost torturous to have to wait for it to get put on paper and get this resolved. So this has been disappointing.

We do look forward to the academic results as well as recommendations. Our pyschologist agrees with us that if the proper remediation was taking place at school, our son would not be in private therapy. Things just are not being instrumented appropriately at school, therefore he is in this downward spiral of failure and its taking a toll on him emotionally. He does not agree with chronic anxiety/depression. He feels its situational, related to school. Outside of the school environment,he is a different kid. So hopefully this report will help us shed light on this area. Just hope its not another disappointment.

Will keep you posted on the results though. Making my every other day call today to see where the report is at.

Our son was diagnosed with PDD-NOS.The Developmental Pediatrician diagnosed him so he could get the help he needed in school. He did not fit the criteria but still diagnosed him for that reason.

Unfortunately it is a really political diagnosis right now and alot of kids get diagnosed because the criteria to diagnose it is very poorly defined. Try reading it in the DSM -4 sometime if you haven’t already. You could diagnose your neigbour withit. Don’t get me wrong I’ve worked with people with PDD before and it is a legitimate I’m sure in some cases. It is just really frustrating how the medical establishment rushes like chicken with their heads cut off to find a new label or buzz word but won’t look at each child on a individual basis. It really reminds me of when ADD/ADHD was such a popular diagnosis and thousands of children were being diagnosed with that as well about 10 years ago.

We gave our son the diagnosis because in Canada if you don’t have it the school will give you next to nothing in services. If you do, the doors wide open. In the end PDD-NOS is not our son and does not define him, its a word. Truth be known I probably would have been diagnosed with it myself as a child as the Developmental Pediatrician said in his report “One can’t help but notice how closely this childs development rivals his fathers as a child.”

Finally got that report. I listed everything (mostly everything, I spared all the boring history). It is under “parenting a child with ld subject” headers. I have to say that I am disappointed that no thorough explanation was given for the test scores so that’s why I posted them for feedback. Also no strengths or significant recommendations for school to remediate the dyslexia were given. She suggests tutoring for that. I believe is should be happening during his school day since there are what seems to me to be significant deficits hindering his every day learning. Please let me know what you think.

I am sorry to hear the Neuropsych assessment wasn’t what you hoped for. A good neuropsych assessment should be written so anyone can read it and if it isn’t the neuropsycholigist should sit down with you and clarify all the data. The neuropsycholigist may have an obligation under their College to clarify this info for you (not sure).

I’m not to sure if I told you this or not. There is good software available on a website www.microosceince.on.ca -
-kerzwell 2000 software that will read books, articles, etc for children after they are scanned into a computer
- Dragon 5 software - voice activated software that will type what a child says into a microphone into a microsoft program that can be printed
- Inspirations software - described as thought webbing software that will help a child organize their thoughts

I have seen all 3 of these programs used at a conference and was very impressed with how well they could assist a child/adult with LD (I’ve considered getting the inspirations software for myself- may be going back to University). Alot of times using compensatory tools are frowned upon by educators but think about how often we use compensatory tools (day timers, spell check/grammar check on the computer, notes, palm piolots, etc).

Computers are very common tools that children are learning to use more and more, having software for the computer to help him may provide a better way to help him blend in and feel better about himself. Another good tool for memory is a Datallink watch (on the Timex website) - watch that can be programmed from a computer to provide a scolling reminder on its face accompanied by a beep. They blend in very well and are cheap.

As for whether to have tutor at school or not I think depends on your son. Would he feel less centered out getting helpoutside of school vs in school. What are the difficulties at school you are describing (I.e. distractability, memory, frustration with reading) and how would such assistance at school benefit him more? Remebering avoiding the difficulty (by using software)isn’t giving up, its simply deciding where your energies would be best spent.

Let me know,
Thanks Brad

Hi,
I’m new to this site and to the area of LD. For the past 5 years, I have taught MID students in my resource room for an average of 3 hours per school day. I am taking classes to complete my interrelated certification, I am certified to teach MR. This upcoming school year we are beginning an inclusion model at my school, an elementary school. I will be serving first grade students, a total of 7 that are in 2 different classes. I have read with interest all of these stories and they will certainly be helpful to me as the perspective of the special ed. teacher. The regular ed. teachers that we will be using are the ones who have been most helpful and supportive of our MID children for the past 5 years. They have worked with our students in homeroom, p.e., music, and science and social studies. I wish that we had the parent support that is being shown on these bulletin boards. The parents of the students that I serve rarely show much support to their child or the school so we do what we think is best. The special education teachers at my school work very hard to support our children. I will keep this information I have learned from this board as I begin this year as the special education teacher in the inclusion classroom.

Thank you Brad for all your knowledge.I have spent the first 11 years of my sons life trying to advocate for him(HE IS NOW 12)I must look toward concrete solutions rather than the illusion that somehow he will get what he needs from the school district.I know I sound negative but I am so sick and tired of my son trying to fit the mold then the mold fit him!!!He is gifted, he has learned things many will never know .He is different, he is special.Please dont take that away from him!I so related with peoples desperate confusion on whether they are doing the right thing for their child.I have done almost all, just in case.So far not alot of progression.He now has an 1:1 aide just for him all day(he stands out is that the best thing?????)the aide tries to blend in and help others too.I also found out he gives my son answers which isnt helping him at all and also causes the other kids to ostersize him.Its taken all these years for the computer programs to be an option after trying the alpha smart which wasn’t a fit for him.I will never give up and Brad your inspiration is one of experience which no one can really understand (not I) until you have been there.I pray my son will encounter a person who has been there.Does anyone one know of any mentoring programs for our special children?

The problem with having the students in a smattering of all five classrooms is astronomical. First, the schedule precludes a sped tchr being in 5 rooms at once when most students need help in the language process, and that is traditionally taught in the first half of the day. your taxes to have five sped tchrs. for each grade to do inclusion would be soaring thru the roof. Also, not every teacher is a good candidate for inclusion. While some teachers may be excellent teachers, the ability to share their classroom’s philosophy, rules, and vision is sometimes testing. Different teacher also have different teaching styles, ( kind of like your child has different learning styles) and the one teacher identified may be able to use multi-sensory techniques that the others are not trained in. Finally, inclusion is being offered for your child. Legally, the access is there.