Conditions Necessary for Desirable Outcomes in Inclusive Classrooms

Research and experience support serving young children with and without disabilities in the same class; however, inclusion alone does not guarantee desirable outcomes. Desirable outcomes occur when two important conditions exist:

1. The classroom should be a high-quality environment for young children. Low-quality classrooms are inappropriate places to include young children with disabilities; inclusion should only occur in high-quality classrooms. Classroom quality can be measured with the
   • Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale (Harms, Cryer, & Clifford, 1990)
   • Preschool Assessment of the Classroom Environment Scale-Revised (Raab & Dunst, 1997)
   • Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 1998)
   • Practices in Early Elementary Classrooms (Hemmeter, Maxwell, Ault, & Schuster, 1997).
   • Accreditation Criteria and Procedures of the National Association for the Education of Young Children — 1998 Edition,(NAEYC, 1998).

   [Also see this information about four environmental rating scales designed for different segments of the early childhood field.]

2. The classroom staff need supports for using individualized instruction with children who have disabilities. Several supports are necessary:
   • The teacher must have training about teaching individualized goals in ongoing activities and about children with disabilities.
   • The teacher needs frequent assistance from specialists and experts, which involves the specialist observing the class, providing suggestions, showing the teacher how to use interventions, and giving feedback.
   • The teacher needs regular time to talk with specialists and plan activities and interventions.
   • The child-to-staff ratio must be low, either by reducing the number of children or adding in-class adult assistance.
   • Teachers must use individualized intervention strategies for the children with disabilities and monitor the child's progress frequently and adjust the strategies as needed.
   • The class must have the adequate space, equipment, and materials and be accessible to the child with disabilities.
   • Finally, parental participation must be encouraged and welcomed.

Without individualized intervention in the context of inclusion, children with disabilities will not acquire their goals. These two conditions must characterize all inclusive early childhood classes if we expect desirable outcomes to occur.