Inclusion: New Possibilities

My life seems to be about integration these days. Between the courses and my family life it seems to be all I think about. Carley is always saying, "I help you Mama?" And she's beginning to demand her own independence as well. "I do it mineself" is a common phrase in our house. The question is how to do it in a meaningful context.

One of the tasks that she thoroughly enjoys is anything to do with cooking. This requires a lot of thought to do this successfully. For example, when Carley puts ingredients into a bowl and wants to stir them, I've discovered that the bowl needs to be really big or most of the ingredients lands all over the kitchen!

Doing "mineself" requires a lot of patience and planning on my part. I need to do a careful task analysis and consider the tools and supports that Carley needs to have to feel successful.

This doesn't seem to be any different when we're in the classroom. We should be looking at the processes that are in the classroom and looking at the ways that special needs students can be included in meaningful ways. Seeing it modeled in the video that was shared in class today and seeing the types of switches that are available helps to frame my thinking about inclusion. As was often said today, "The possibilities are endless."

I'm left to wonder if more could be done to help teachers learn about meaningful inclusion? From my own conversations with others in the past, I know that there is a lot of worry and confusion that people feel with regards to supporting students with special needs. Often teachers feel ill-prepared to support these students. Perhaps having more whole-staff inservicing on assistive technology and it's purposes and functions will ultimately help students to do more "minestuff" in their classroom? I look forward to anyone's suggestions or comments on this point!