Mainstreaming Can Work!
Tips to Achieve Success in the Mainstream Education Experience
This article provides information about the benefits of mainstreaming and provides tips to help families succeed in this setting.
When a child is born with special needs, there are a myriad of concerns that parents face. The first few years there is a focus on nurturing, providing the appropriate medical and therapeutic treatments, providing opportunities for socializing, and providing nutrition and care. As a child grows and ages, the focus transforms and discussions involve decisions about how the child will continue to learn and develop. Often parents want their children to have a “normal” experience, want them to reach their optimal potential, and want them to learn and develop in the same setting that all children do.
Mainstreaming is an option that is an inclusive form of education where the majority of students and those with special needs learn in the same classroom as much as possible, though special education classes are available when there is an educational need. Here is some information about the benefits of the mainstreaming educational experience and some tips to help the experience be more rewarding and positive for the whole family.
The Benefits of Mainstreaming
Over the last 20 years mainstreaming has become more popular because of the benefits it has for both the children with special needs and for the rest of the classroom. The classroom can be an excellent environment for children with special needs. “Children who struggle with social or communication skills are surrounded by children who can provide them with more appropriate social modeling and more challenging conversational interactions than their special needs peers,” said Dr. Deborah Varos, a clinical psychologist in Southern California, in a 2008 interview.
Dr. Varos believes the academic and behavioral expectations in mainstream classrooms are often higher than those in a special needs class which provides special needs children with higher quality education.
Mainstreaming gives special needs children an opportunity to educate their classmates, teachers, parents, and others about persons with special needs and their abilities. This helps challenge any pre-existing attitudes and beliefs about those with special needs.
Children without special needs may also benefit from the different instructional style of the teacher due to the diverse learning styles of those who may have difficulty in the mainstream classroom and the teachers may be more innovative in their approach, which benefits all of the children in the classroom.
All children involved in the mainstream classroom begin to appreciate one another’s similarities and differences and realize that disabilities are a matter or perception and may be more of a social phenomenon than a medical one.
How to Make Mainstreaming Work
“Parents of special needs children expect a mainstream educational experience to provide the richest and most complete opportunity for mastering the complex combination of academic and social skills that we all find necessary for success in life,” said Robert B. McKeagney, MSW during an interview in January 2008. McKeagney, who is a nationally recognized administrator and consultant with over forty years of experience in multi-systemic approaches to helping children with special needs, believes that a multi-disciplinary team, that includes the school, the appropriate professionals and both the parent and the child, must work together in order to achieve and sustain the educational process.
What is important to remember, described McKeagney, is parents should allow their child to assume maximum possible responsibility for his or her experience. The child really is the one who is responsible for the learning and this is the most difficult role on the team. Meanwhile parents provide support, with a high level of expectation of their child, which helps the child reach his or her optimal potential. Parents must then be excellent advocates for their child, communicating with other professional members of the team, in order to achieve the best possible experience in the mainstream setting.
Be an Advocate for Your Child With Special Needs
In order for your child to achieve success in the classroom, parents need to perfect their skills as advocates. Parents can generally assume the various professional members of the multi-disciplinary team are competent and committed to achieving the best results for their child. However, the parents need to recognize that as parents they are the only team members for whom their child is ‘number one.’
Parents need to participate in planning, evaluation, and decision-making to ensure quality assurance. They need to ask questions, expect to hear detailed information, express their opinions and feel confident about what they know and value. Parents should always strive to understand any plan to the fullest extent.
Parents should also understand the line between assertiveness and harassment as some professionals in the school system may marginalize the team role of the parents. However, remember that those parents who advocate for their child can have considerable control over their child's educational program.
Get Support For the Whole Family
The children, siblings, and parents can sometimes feel isolated, lonely, and feel as if they are struggling to overcome a number of different obstacles in this setting. Be sure to seek support if you feel you need it. Individual and family counseling can be extremely helpful. Remember that parents need to take care of their own personal and emotional needs so they can appropriately tend to the needs of their entire family and be in a positive position to help their children.
Parents should consider seeking support of other parents with children who have special needs as this can be an excellent way to share experiences and it can provide both parties with an opportunity to discuss the resources available in the school system and in the local community for the children and the parents.
