Most of the documentation on inclusion focuses on the benefits for students with disabilities because that is the key rationale for the practice. However, there is plenty of evidence supporting the success of nondisabled students in inclusive classrooms.

While a great many documents mention the effect on nondisabled students, we wanted to collect a few as examples and cite specific quotations. We tried to select a range of document types. Most of the documents are available for downloading in their entirety from links in this posting but a few are only abstracts because we could not find a complete copy of the original source online. Check a library if you'd like to see the entire article. Also, many articles are available from the journal websites for a fee.

From National Association of School Psychologists
by Leslie Z. Paige, Ed.S., NCSP

Inclusion programs are being implemented in many school districts across the country. In 1995, the National Center on Educational Restructuring and Inclusion reported that over nine hundred school districts were utilizing inclusive programs; a threefold increase since 1994. Therefore, it seems probable that many school psychologists are currently or will someday in the near future be involved in the development or implementation of inclusive education practices. The purpose of this PGSP self study module is to provide school psychologists with the means to acquire a working knowledge of and useful strategies for effective practice within an inclusion model.

Here is the entire text of the IDEA statute as reauthorized in 2004.

Much Better Than Adequate Progress

From Washington Post
By Jay Mathews and Karin Chenoweth
Tuesday, April 4, 2006

Today I have a guest columnist, Karin Chenoweth, who used to write about schools for The Post but decided she would prefer actually to do something to help them, so she works for the non-profit Achievement Alliance.

She told me that the recent package of school principal essays in the Post's Sunday Outlook section left a negative impression of the No Child Left Behind law, while she knew many principals who thought the new accountability system was good. She asked: Could they tell their stories too? I said sure. Here is the result:

By Karin Chenoweth

Outlook featured 11 principals explaining why their schools didn't make Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) as defined by No Child Left Behind. Toward the end of the article, one of the principals said, "We're doing the best we can, but if someone can do it better, let them show us how."

I have spent the last year-and-a-half searching out schools that are getting great results under very difficult conditions. These are schools where many of the children are poor but where just about all of them either meet or exceed state standards. These schools have little trouble making AYP. They may have a handle on doing it "better."

The booklet Thinking about Inclusion and Learning Disabilities: A Teacher's Guide is from the Council for Exceptional Children's group, Division for Learning Disabilities.
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According to the booklet itself:

This guide, designed to foster understanding among general and special educators, highlights the most current thinking and reasrch on learning disabilities and inclusion. Explains what a classroom is like to a child with a learning disabilities. Poses critical questions and provides mini case studies. The guide also offers ideas for teacher teams to investigate to see how their classroom structures and instructional practices affect their students.

From www.ldonline.org
by Shireen Pavri and Richard Luftig - Preventing School Failure, Fall 2000


The movement toward inclusion of students with disabilities into general education classes has become the overwhelming trend in education (Chow & Kasari, 1999; Mamlin, 1999). Not only does inclusive education for children with disabilities bring improved academic functioning (Manset & Semmel, 1997; Sideridis et al., 1997), but it also offers them the opportunity for socialization with their peers without disabilities in general education classrooms (Giangreco, Dennis, Cloninger, Edelman, & Shattman, 1993; National Center for Educational Restructuring and Inclusion, 1994). While early studies have investigated the academic performance of children with disabilities in inclusive settings, there has been increased interest in and attention to the social adjustment and social functioning of children with disabilities in inclusive settings (Vaughn, Elbaum, & Schumm, 1996; Vaughn, Elbaum, Schumm, & Hughes, 1998).

by Jerome J. Schultz, Ph.D.
Clinical Neuropsychologist/Inclusion Consultant Wellesley Hills, MA

What are the advantages of inclusion for my child with a learning disability?
There are social and academic benefits. Having the opportunity to be appropriately educated in a regular classroom gives your child, for perhaps the first time, the chance to feel "like other kids." Unless all kids go freely and without judgment to a learning center or resource room whenever they need it, the trip to the special education room often has a stigma attached to it. Having the opportunity (in a well- supported and appropriately modified inclusive classroom) to achieve and interact and succeed and fail like the others can really do a lot for a child's sense of self-worth. Kids who do well in an inclusive environment feel more like they "own" the education they've been exposed to. Consider the young man who graduated recently from high school after years of being serviced by a special education program. He told me he didn't think he could make it in college because there was no way he could survive without all the special services he had received. This same fellow wasn't sure who had earned the A's and B's he got on his report card, when he asked: "Was it me or the LD teacher?"

This document describes a study called a Model for Paraprofessional and Supervisor Training Designed to Meet the Needs of Students with Disabilities in General Education Settings.

Around 2000, the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services (OSERS) and the Office of Special Education Programs from the federal Department of Education (DOE) commissioned the Center on Disability and Community Inclusion at the Univerisity of Vermont to look at paraprofession training in support of Inclusion.

Grasping the Promise of Inclusion, by Fern Rudd is written from the perspective of a teacher who believes in the concept of "inclusion". This particular teacher also is the mother of a child with autism.

The first ten pages offer a good background on studies, key cases, and laws illustrating how and why a "separate but equal" system for Special Education does not work. It's background worth reviewing. The document then goes on to describe an "inclusive classroom" that benefits everyone as well as situations where moving kids with disabilities into a regular ed environment without the right supports failed.

References point out some interesting components of successful Inclusion program like: "belief it works" as well as a sense of humor. The report also discusses how inclusion programs can be implemented (ad-hoc, pilot, large scale mandate, etc.) well as the overcoming natural resistance to change.

Here's a study that asked teachers what they thought about their first direct experience with the "inclusion" or mainstreaming" of kids with autism in their classes. In the words of the report: "This study aimed to understand the nature of outreach support from a mainstream teacher’s point of view."
Parents may find it insightful to see the situation from the eyes of the teachers. While this study was small and it was in the UK, a great deal of the information in the study is valuable.

The driving forces behind the mainstream effort described in the article will sound familiar to US parents and teachers:
"Current educational policy in the UK is permeated by the rhetoric of ‘inclusive education’. At national level, the Standards in Scotland’s Schools etc. Act 2000 requires all children to be educated in mainstream provision in all but exceptional circumstances."