Over the past decades significant changes have occurred throughout all aspects of the field of Special Education in Spain. One of these changes is related to appropriate and effective instruction for students with disabilities and diverse educational needs in inclusive classroom placements. All of these change efforts have created the need to…

Schools in the United States and schools across majority of countries around the world today face two critical issues: "Inclusion of students with disabilities in general education classrooms" and a contributing factor to success of this inclusion, teachers prepared to use best practices. "Best practices" in education are approaches to teaching,…

One of the provisions of the law for special education in Cyprus is for children considered as having special needs to be educated in "special units". The purpose of this study is to investigate and observe the way that "special units" function in the educational environment in Cyprus, paying particular attention to one unit in…

This book provides an internationally comparable set of indicators on educational provision for students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages (DDD). It highlights the number of students involved, where they are educated--special schools, special classes or regular classes--and in what phases of education--pre-primary,…

Disputes eight myths about special education relating to inclusion, including automatic individualization of instruction and negative effects of attending special classes, the potentially positive effects of eliminating labeling, and the neighborhood school's general education classroom as the least restrictive environment for all children.…

This study compared the contextual classroom features of public school segregated classrooms and community-based integrated classrooms for 16 preschool children with disabilities, by examining the relations between classroom characteristics and child sociability. The two classroom contexts were found to be similar, with no differences in child…

Discusses how the advent of public school special day-classes for children with disabilities marked a major shift in the service model in the direction of educational and societal inclusion. The different visions of the classes as cluster, clinic, and clearinghouse are explained. (Author/CR)

A survey of 43 early childhood special-education administrators in California found the programs for infants tended to be home-based, preschoolers with mild disabilities were frequently fully included, and preschoolers with severe disabilities and low-incidence disabilities were more often partially included or placed in special classes only.…

Federal legislation for educating students with disabilities guides the selection of educational placements on the basis of the least restrictive environment, which must encourage the promotion of social interaction between students with disabilities and their nondisabled peers and must provide students an appropriate education. Some advocacy…

This paper discusses the outcomes of a longitudinal study that investigated whether significant change has occurred in the number of Louisiana students in general education, resource, and separation placements from 1990 to 1999; whether significant differences in placement by age category have continued; and which school systems show a tendency…

This article reports on several studies that used discourse analysis to interpret the linguistic interactions between students with special educational needs in segregated and integrated settings. Results indicated that integrated settings were characterized by "didactic" interactions, while segregated settings showed "familiar" behavior. (DB)

This study examined the prevalence of different program models for early childhood special education services (ECSE) to children with disabilities, ages 3-5, in Iowa. The degree to which children in ECSE programs received special education services in settings with their peers who did not have disabilities was also investigated. The study sample…

This collection of position statements issued by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) addresses three issues: (1) inclusive schools and community settings; (2) physical intervention; and (3) discipline. CEC's policy on inclusive schools is to support the concept of inclusion as a meaningful goal but also urge that a continuum of services be…

Assessment of age, disability severity, developmental status, functional abilities, and behavioral characteristics of 162 children (ages 11 to 102 months) found that children enrolled in inclusive programs were more mildly disabled and functioned at higher levels than counterparts in programs exclusively for children with disabilities.…

This study provides an evaluation of the national and state level educational environmental placement trends for students, ages 6-11 or 12-17, with learning disabilities (LD), emotional disabilities (ED), mental retardation (MR), or speech and language impairments (SLI) in the decade following implementation of the Regular Education Initiative…