It is common sense that when a disabled child is taken and integrated in a classroom of normal functioning children their functioning level will increase in areas of socialization, peer relationships, language, cognitive and motor skills development, opposed to those placed in a special program with all children who are disabled. Personal experience has taught me, especially in the case of Autism that disabled children can learn a lot and copy behaviors of other normal functioning children they are exposed to on a daily basis, increasing their level of function in areas previously mentioned.
In Canada and most areas of the United States it has become law for school boards to provide a modified program or special education resources which allow a disabled child to progress in school and obtain their education, regardless of what obstacles they may have physically or developmentally. Integration can play a valuable lesson to children who have no disability. It can teach them acceptance and realization of how lucky they are to have all their faculties and not the daily struggles of those with a disability. Most parents who choose to integrate their disabled child into a normal classroom setting find it is the best way to promote the child's social skills by allowing the interaction between the disabled child and other normal children. It also allows the adjustment they need to function in the world when they grow older, so that hopefully they can gain higher education and a job, while living independently.
Integration in the school system is done by means of orientation and planning seminars, technical help and interchange of specialized knowledge, while changing the teaching approach in the class room from the traditional universal one, to one that focuses on the individual child and their needs by not only training the teacher on special teaching methods, but providing assistants in the classroom who can work one on one with the disabled child.
There are several services, each necessary when making the best possible scenario for integration of disabled children in the normal school setting. These include:
· School Health Services - necessary for children of certain disabilities who would not be able to attend full days without them. special feedings
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