Schools are a fundamental part of our communities. Our educational institutions are not only the place where children learn — they are also the place where they develop friendships.
Children are heavily influenced by education and are especially affected by what happens in the classroom. This is particularly true when children with disabilities are included in the classroom and learn alongside children without disabilities.
Children with disabilities achieve better life outcomes when they are included, regardless of the type of disability. Children without disabilities often have better developmental and social outcomes. They also have more positive attitudes about their peers with disabilities. Being a part of the classroom sets the stage for a lifetime of community living, as the documentary film Including Samuel shows.
Full inclusion in learning environments means more than simply placing students with disabilities in classrooms alongside their peers. It must be meaningful for everyone for it to work. It involves an intentional focus on the academic, social, and psychological aspects of education that are important to all students’ development.
Full inclusion can work for all types of disabilities and at every stage of a child’s development — from early childhood to college. And the good news is that most students with disabilities spend most of their time in the regular classroom. However, there is still work to be done. Autistic children, deaf-blind children, and children with intellectual disabilities or multiple disabilities are more likely to spend most of their school day in separate classrooms, and only 45% of 3-to-5-year-olds with disabilities are learning alongside their peers without disabilities.
Early childhood
Inclusion happens when children with disabilities in early childhood programs are learning and playing together with their peers without disabilities, and they are held to high expectations. Children with disabilities are intentionally encouraged to participate in all learning and social activities. They have individualized accommodations, using evidence-based services and supports to foster their cognitive, language, communication, physical, behavioral, and social-emotional development; friendships with peers; and sense of belonging. This applies to all young children with disabilities, from those with the mildest disabilities to those with the most significant disabilities.
Preschool children with disabilities (ages 3-5) have difficulty accessing early childhood special education services in inclusive settings. In 2019, 55% of preschool children with disabilities received special education services in settings separate from their peers without disabilities. Data trends over the past three decades indicate that the percentage of preschool children with disabilities who receive special education services in general early childhood programs has remained largely unchanged.
Many children are referred to separate settings, such as special education preschool classrooms, as a first resort. This may be especially true for children with more significant disabilities, despite evidence that inclusion is beneficial to children across ability levels.
The following challenges are frequently cited as barriers to inclusion in early childhood programs:
- Attitudes and beliefs
- Interpretation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and perceived barriers
- Lack of staffing, training, and expertise of the early childhood workforce
- Lack of comprehensive services
- Limited time and commitment to build partnerships
Despite this, early childhood inclusion can work well.
Head Start is a federal program funded by the HHS Administration for Children and Families for children from 3 to 5 years old and their families. Head Start programs prepare America’s most vulnerable young children to succeed in school and in life beyond school.
Head Start can help children with disabilities. Federal law says each Head Start program must reserve at least 10% of its enrollment for children with disabilities. A child must be eligible based on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to get special education services from a Head Start program.
Some of the services Head Start provides include special education for children with disabilities, plus health, dental, nutrition, and mental health services. The Head Start website has resources for supporting children with disabilities and the Head Start Program Performance Standards on the eligibility and selection of children with disabilities.
The Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center (ECTA), funded by the U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services’ Office of Special Education Programs, has several resources, including indicators of high-quality inclusion.
A lack of program capacity to manage challenging behavior or social-emotional developmental delays may be a barrier to inclusion and may contribute to expulsions and suspensions. The ACL-funded Florida Center for Inclusive Communities is partnering with other universities on the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI). The Office of Special Education Programs funds this center to improve and support the capacity of state systems and local programs to implement an early childhood multi-tiered system of support to enhance the social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of young children with, and at risk for, developmental disabilities or delays. In 2019, the center collaborated with ECTA to host a webinar, Indicators of High-Quality Inclusion: A Comprehensive Set of Tools.
K-12
In the past 20 years, students with disabilities have made substantial educational progress — academic test scores, high school graduation rates, and college-going rates have all increased. This progress, in part, is related to the requirements in the nation’s special education law: the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This law requires that students ages 3 through 21 be educated in the least restrictive environment (LRE), to the maximum extent appropriate, factoring in an individual child’s unique strengths and needs.
The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), the most recent version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, is the nation’s major federal law related to public education in grades pre-kindergarten through high school. ESSA provides the current federal parameters for standards-based reform for all students, including students with disabilities. With standards-based reform, educators must pay attention to what all students should be able to know and do for the grade level assigned and address gaps in academic performance, including that of students with disabilities. In February 2018, the National Council on Disabilities issued the Every Student Succeeds Act and Students with Disabilities report on the overlap between ESSA and IDEA.
The film Who Cares about Kelsey documents the lives of students with emotional/behavioral challenges and shows innovative educational approaches that help these students to succeed, while improving the overall school culture and climate.
The key to ensuring access to the curriculum is designing with a purpose. Universal design for learning (UDL) is a framework to improve and optimize teaching and learning for all people, based on scientific insights into how humans learn. Universal design for learning uses accessible educational materials (AEM), which are print and technology-based educational materials, including printed and electronic textbooks that are designed or enhanced in a way that makes them usable across the widest range of learner variability, regardless of formats (print, digital, graphic, audio, video):
- Print materials — such as textbooks, manuals, workbooks, paper assessments, and handouts — may be converted to make them accessible to learners with disabilities related to blindness, reading, and mobility. Braille, large print, audio, and digital text can make print more accessible.
- Digital materials — such as websites, e-books, podcasts, and videos — are media-rich sources of course content. They may include text, audio, video, and graphics and require interaction.
- Technology-based delivery systems — such as web-based applications, social media, video players, simulation programs, adaptive learning platforms, learning management systems, tablets, smartphones, and computer stations — can all be used to make educational materials accessible.
The ACL-funded Institute for Community Integration (Minnesota UCEDD) has funding from the U.S. Department of Education for the TIES Center. This is the national technical assistance center on inclusive practices and policies. Its purpose is to create sustainable changes in kindergarten–grade 8 school and district educational systems so that students with significant cognitive disabilities can fully engage in the same instructional and non-instructional activities as their general education peers while being instructed in a way that meets individual learning needs.
A NIDILRR-funded grantee, Inclusive Information and Communications Technology RERC, produced the following 2024 publication, Bridging the Digital Divide: Using Free Open-Source Tools to Expand Access to Shared-Use Computers in Schools and Libraries. Key findings from this publication include, but are not limited to:
- Many people do not have personal computers or home internet access and rely on shared computers in places like libraries and schools. However, these shared computers often do not support the specific assistive technologies some users need, and users are typically not permitted to install their required AT on public computers for security reasons. This exclusion puts AT users at a significant disadvantage or even blocks them from participation entirely when activities require computer use.
- The chapter introduces a solution called Morphic, a free, open-source utility designed for all public/shared computers. Morphic provides:
- Easy discovery and quick access to the computer’s built-in accessibility features via a simple, customized toolbar.
- AT-on-Demand: allows users to automatically and temporarily install the assistive technology they personally need onto any public computer, with their individual settings. When finished, the AT is automatically removed, maintaining security.
- Personalization tools: Users can store and recall their accessibility settings on any device, making each computer session comfortable and familiar.
- Custom toolbars: For users who struggle with complex interfaces, Morphic can offer a highly simplified experience.
- These capabilities:
- Enable full participation for AT users, making public/shared computers as universally accessible as they should be for everyone.
- Also help people who may not have a diagnosed disability but find modern computer interfaces challenging.
- Allow schools to let students access AT on computers outside of school (like at home or in the library), without breaching privacy or licensing agreements
A 2025 NIDILRR-funded Switzer fellow is working on developing a new software or netware product called TheraSquad. This product is a goal tracking software for special education therapists. The goal of the software is to facilitate easier, higher-quality goal tracking for school-based therapists that also increases parent engagement through transparent communication around goal progress. This technology will be described in a publication, but that publication is currently under development.
Higher education
Inclusion doesn’t end when children graduate from high school. Inclusion also happens in colleges and universities. Think College at ACL’s Institute for Community Inclusion in Massachusetts supports institutions of higher education in creating inclusive post-secondary programs. The Next Steps program is supported by the ACL-funded Vanderbilt Kennedy University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (VKC UCEDD). The program grew out of several years of planning by a group that originally included the VKC UCEDD, the ACL-funded Tennessee Council on Developmental Disabilities, the Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee, and The Arc of Williamson County.
NIDILRR’s Inclusive Information and Communications Technology RERC at the University of Maryland, College Park, in collaboration with the nonprofit Raising the Floor, is working to increase the adoption of two free and open-source tools to make computers easier to use for those who need accessibility features or assistive technology: Morphic and AT on Demand. Morphic allows users to have 1-click access to accessibility features that come standard with a computer's operating system through the MorphicBar. As of 2023, Morphic has been installed on over 10,000 computers on college campuses and libraries across the country, and this grantee is working to expand adoption of Morphic, including to several rural and tribal areas. AT on Demand, which works on any computer that has Morphic installed, allows users who need assistive technology to access their AT on any computer they use. AT on Demand installs and configures users’ AT, regardless of whether the AT is already installed or if the device is set to prevent user installation of software and disappears when this is complete. AT on Demand became available for universities, libraries, and other organizations to test in late 2022 and was released for general use in 2023. Both Morphic and AT on Demand are completely free, easy to use with 1-click, and customizable to each person’s needs, creating an improved digital experience for users with disabilities.