Inclusion of children with disabilities

At last Wednesday I attend a webinar at ed Web. Net. It was with Kathryn Wahl who is responsible for promoting supporting and advocating for all children to have full access to inclusive environments. The title was 12 Keys to High-Quality Early Childhood Inclusion.

The outcomes were to understand services provided by the inclusion collaborative, to understand what is high quality early childhood inclusion and the 12 inclusive practices associated with high quality.

She first started by the three main points in the pyramid which are coaching, teaching assistance and professional development.

The person with disabilities should be in the top to have a value as other, this point is the first step to change the negative attitudes about the disabilities. To understand more what is inclusion she introduces a document in the slide that was really so helpful and let us differentiate between inclusion, exclusion, segregation and integration. At the end we know that inclusion is to let the persons with disabilities live side by side as other, study the same ideas, explain in the same manner, treated the same as other. To let them feel that they are the same and one of the society where they live and they have a role in this society. This could be done in an environment by which the child is supported, by using different ways of accessing materials and by placing them in an ordinary classroom.

Inclusion is beneficial for the children with disabilities and without disabilities by which they can treat with each other normally without any fear and to build a friendship, a child with disabilities will observe other normal child and know how to deal with them, learn how to solve problems and have different social skills and to be more positive, the child without disabilities will accept them and be more comfortable by treating with them, have greater self-esteem. Also, it is beneficial for parent of both child and mainly to the teacher who treats with them and finally they will be beneficial to their community.

Rating ICP is used here, it indicates the extent to which adults adapt the classroom’s environment, activates and instructional support in ways that encourage access and active participation in the group, through adjustments that might differ from child to child.

This rating could be used in different ways, as a research instruments to measure the attribution between the programs used and the students progress, as a classroom evaluation tool to measure the quality of inclusion practice in the classroom, then as a quality improvement tool to include models of professional development that can support more those children to be more inclusive.

The 12 areas of ICP measures are adaptations of space and materials, adult environment in peer interactions, adults’ guidance of children’s activities and play, conflict resolution, membership, relationships between adults and children, support for communication, adaptation of group activities, transitions between activities, feedback, family- professional partnership and monitoring children learning.