Counselors + Educators + Families as a Transdisciplinary Team = More Effective Inclusion for Students with Disabilities.

The inclusion of students with disabilities into general education classrooms is a promising alternative to separate placements, but it has required changes in service delivery patterns.

Abstract

Recently, parents and professionals have begun to question the value of sending students with disabilities to separate placements, away from same-age peers without disabilities, for special education services (Alper, Schloss, & Schloss, 1996; Bradley, King-Sears, & Switlick, 1997; Idol & Baran, 1992; Stainback & Stainback, 1990; Villa & Thousand, 1995). The inclusion of students with disabilities into general education classrooms is a promising alternative to separate placements (Eber, Nelson, & Miles, 1997; Oswald & Singh, 1996), but it has required changes in service delivery patterns. Traditional service delivery patterns were characterized by role boundaries that clearly delineated individuals' responsibilities in the delivery of special education services. Such clearly defined roles were useful to the smooth operation of special education services. When students with disabilities received most of their educational services in special education schools and/or classrooms, the separation of the roles and responsibilities of service delivery providers may have had minimal impact on the efficiency and effectiveness of educational programming for students with disabilities. However, within inclusive service delivery patterns, narrowly prescribed roles limit participants' contributions of their unique areas of expertise across all aspects of special education programs. For example, working within one interpretation of a traditional service delivery pattern, a counselor's role may have been limited to participation on a team to determine a student's eligibility for special education services with little continuing involvement upon the student's eligibility. Similarly, a general educator's traditional role may have been limited to the identification and referral of a student with problems to a team within the school for assessment, with few responsibilities following the student's special education placement. A special educator's traditional role may have been characterized by participation in team meetings and assessment processes, and by ongoing educational services for the student within a special setting. Parents' roles on a team have usually been that of passive participation. Family members have relied on school personnel's expertise and may not have realized the expertise that they could contribute to a team discussion. This passivity often becomes more pronounced when parents enter the process from a different cultural context (Harry, 1992a, 1992b; Sexton, Lobman, Constans, Snyder, & Ernest, 1997). Many counselors and educators are already familiar with mainstreaming students with disabilities into general education classrooms when the student is ready. In the past, readiness for a student with disabilities meant the student performed on grade level in academics, interacted appropriately with adults and peers, and had the organizational skills and work habits to get the work done within inflexible general education settings and curricula demands. Mainstreaming, based on a readiness perspective, often results in few students with disabilities earning their way back into mainstream (i.e., general education) classrooms. Some students with disabilities will never be able to catch up to their same-age peers, so they rarely have many, if any, opportunities to participate in classroom settings with typical peers. Inclusive settings provide students, with and without disabilities, with learning experiences in which the students work together on differentiated (versus the same) objectives within flexible and responsive learning environments. Efforts to translate inclusive research to practice require more than enhancing educators' and counselors' knowledge about disabilities and developing their skills in new intervention methods. Adults need new ways of communicating and working together to make inclusive services effective. Traditional models of how adults work together, including multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, often isolate service providers, including school counselors, from one another, and ultimately fall short of the collaboration needed to ensure effective inclusive services. …