Inclusion from the other side

Chances are that if your kid is in an inclusion setting, there are 30 to 40 "normal" children in the class as well. When you are writing IEPs and consulting about what is best for your child, do you even give them half a second of thought? I know you are thinking "they are not my problem," but let me ask you something. Using the examples from my other post, if you have it in your child's IEP that s/he must be included in all field trips and such and the class has a trip planned to Great Adventure, but they can't go because it is not accessible to YOUR child, is it fair to deprive all of them?? Or if they can't dissect frogs because your child lacks the necessary motor skills, is it fair to deprive all of them?? Or if they can't have a fun field day full of races because of your child, is it fair to all of them? The truth is, with an inclusion setting (unlike a specialized setting), it is no longer just about how to educate YOUR child. S/he has to function as PART of a puzzle now, not as a puzzle that was centered around her/him. How would you feel if you had a HUGE presentation at work and one of the members of your team kept slowing everyone down, or falling asleep at his desk, or forgetting to bring you some essential piece of paper, making it ever so difficult to complete your task or making you late for an afternoon at the amusement park with your kid? The truth is, you would probably be pissed. You would say, "I don't care about this guy's problem. I don't OWE him anything. We have a job to do and it is not working with him around." Normal kids can take the same attitude toward your child. They too are entitled to a fun and productive learning environment and they do not OWE your child anything. I am not saying that inclusion cannot work, but your child needs to be able to work with the other kids instead of forcing everyone to run around in circles making adaptions for her/him. After a while, everyone WILL get impatient and fed-up help only goes so far. An aide is a reasonable request; someone to feed your child during lunch, or maybe a nurse in the class, or making sure a lift bus is ordered IF there is a field trip going on that your child can participate in. However, if you start putting things in like making sure your child can go on ALL field trips, or that field days be FULLY adaptable, or that class experiments be altered, you are taking away from everyone else's experiences. The truth is, a lot of you have younger children and you really haven't hit the hard stuff yet. When you reach junior high and high school, there will be track meets and swim meets and cheerleading and tons of other stuff that your kids have no hope of participating in. As far as the other kids...well, they get less tolerant too. So when you are considering inclusion, ask yourself the following two questions. 1. How many adaptations are being made so that my child can function/participate? and 2. How can my child AND the others function/participate together?? The truth is that if too many things need to be modified, it is not going to be fair to the other kids or to YOUR child. LOOK at the interaction factor as a part of the WHOLE picture. Academics and your child's needs are only a part of it. It is not a matter of just what they can and cannot do physically--you can put ANY child into a inclusionary setting!

Either way, there is NO ONE RIGHT WAY!