Despite decades of advocacy, most students with developmental disabilities continue to spend the majority of the school day in self-contained special education classrooms. However, there is tremendous variability of educational placement across the United States. Identification of geographic trends that explain this variability could provide…

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…

The author examines trends in special education of the past five years, including court cases, emphasis on mainstreaming, categorization schemes, and behavior modification schemes, and makes projections for the next five years. (MJB)

This study investigated initial placements, current placements, and stability of placements for 1,646 graduates of special education preschool programs for 3- and 4-year-olds with developmental disabilities from 61 New Mexico school districts. Subjects graduated in four waves from 1986-87 through 1989-90. Major findings were that 10 percent of the…

Analysis of placement and exit data on students with mental retardation (MR) found in annual reports on implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act indicated an upward trend in educating students with mental retardation in general education classrooms, a decline in graduation rates with a diploma or certificate, and a greater…

Examination of data from the "Annual Reports to Congress on the Implementation of Public Law 94-142" from 1979 through 1989 revealed that the placement rate for students with learning disabilities being educated in restrictive, separate class settings almost doubled. The proportion of all students with learning disabilities served in…

This report updates an earlier study on educational placements of children with mental retardation, comparing data from the 1989-90 school year with the 1990-91 school year. The data indicate that regular class placements increased from 6.7 percent to 7.4 percent from 1989-90 to 1990-91. Resource room placements increased from 20.1 to 23 percent,…

This article sees the inclusion movement as leading to the rapid erosion of placement options for students with disabilities and notes that no single classroom can be appropriately, habilitatively restrictive for all children. It suggests that advocates of full inclusion deny realities, rights, and responsibilities involved in constructing the…

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…

This rebuttal to a criticism of the authors' article questioning the regular class placement of students with learning disabilities (LD) cites research that supports the effectiveness of special education settings for some students and highlights limitations of inclusion settings. The paper stresses that the elimination of the continuum of…

This paper presents a summary of the current status of efforts to include students with mental retardation in mainstream educational programs. It begins with a summary of a New Jersey federal court's ruling requiring more inclusive education and a discussion of the commitment of the Arc (formerly The Association for Retarded Citizens of the United…

This study investigated the changes in the mainstreaming practices of five school districts, which were originally described in a 1974 study by Birch. The districts involved were: Tacoma (Washington), Richardson (Texas), Plano (Texas), Tucson (Arizona), and Louisville (Kentucky). Survey forms were sent to superintendents of the original six…