Background and aims: Children with special educational needs (SEN) are generally less accepted by peers in school and have fewer friendships than those without SEN. However, little research has examined peer relations across multiple dimensions, relative to severity of need and in relation to classroom experiences and individual behavioural…

Students with autism spectrum disorder often require social supports to function well in a mainstream class setting. Researchers have demonstrated the effects of social skills training for students with autism, but their work has focused primarily on topographically defined outcomes, such as increasing the frequency of social behaviours. More…

Background: One of the most commonly cited rationales for inclusive education is to enable the development of quality relationships with typically developing peers. Relatively few researchers have examined the features of the range of relationships that children with developmental disability form in inclusive school settings. Method: Interviews…

Len Barton has pioneered the sociological study of education in the areas of disability studies and inclusive education. This paper addresses an argument developed by Len Barton that social exclusion, of which disablism is one element, (1) has many compounding forms of differing exclusions, (2) is not a natural but a socially constructed process,…

In an examination of the socialization process of five hearing impaired children (8-10 years old) integrated within hearing groups in a summer day camp, it was found that counselor attitudes improved after exposure to the hearing impaired Ss. (Author/CL)

Borrowing from epidemiological and economic analysis, we argue that the central constructs by which children are judged educationally rest in contrastive judgements and that such judgements are based on "everyday" constructs--not objective descriptors. But because these everyday constructs become seemingly objectified by the procedures and…

This investigation compared 19 adolescents' perceptions of the nonspeech personality characteristics of voice-disordered and normal-speaking children. Listeners, who rated recorded speech samples, showed a significant tendency to judge the normal speakers more positively than the voice-disordered speakers. Results suggest developmental trends in…

This sourcebook contains advice for the regular classroom teacher who plans to receive a visually impaired child into his or her class. It specifically emphasizes development of positive teacher attitudes. Its style is a combination of narrative exposition and imaginary dialogue between an elementary grade teacher and her school's itinerant…

This study examined social and personal concomitants of exceptional academic capability, specifically self-concept, peer acceptance, and attitude toward school, in the context of integrated or self-contained classrooms. The sample consisted of 354 gifted Ontario students from Grades 5, 8, and 10 (150 in self-contained classrooms and 204 in…

Discusses the Regular Education Initiative used to introduce students with mild mental retardation into classes with their peers for academic purposes. Seeks to provide unique alternatives and suggestions for the inclusion of students with mental retardation into groups with their peers. Offers a primary prevention model focusing on group…

Suggestions are made in this sourcebook for adapting teaching strategies and curriculum materials in social studies to accomodate the needs of the visually impaired (VI) student. It is presented in eight chapters. Chapter one explains why elementary grade social studies, with its emphasis on visual media, presents difficulties for VI children.…

Information in this pamphlet will enable regular classroom teachers to plan for accepting visually impaired children into their classes. It specifically reviews elements of the planning process, appropriate goals for the child, roles of the regular teacher and resource teacher, and special materials and classroom strategies. Opening chapters…