Students with significant disabilities often attend general education (mainstream) classrooms, yet they are not receiving adequate support to experience full school participation. This qualitative case study was conducted to explore how key intrinsic (i.e. personal skills and abilities) and extrinsic (i.e. environmental) factors influence the…

Students with learning disabilities navigating both special education and mainstream classrooms face unique challenges. This qualitative study explored the experiences of five third-grade students in a Northern Israel elementary school through semi-structured Hebrew interviews. Using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, three themes emerged:…

Previous studies reported that a substantial number of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) encounter challenges in mathematics as they advance through their education. The present study evaluates the mathematical competence of 17 students diagnosed with ASD who were recruited from first through fourth grades in 12 different mainstream…

Effective inclusive teaching practice enables differently abled students to be educated in the general education setting alongside their peers, providing equitable educational opportunities. The purpose of this action research study was to explore and strengthen how general educators, special educators, and support staff (referred to as…

An achievement gap is defined as a significant difference in academic performance between two groups. Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) data indicate that, in Crestland Public School District (pseudonym), there is a clear achievement gap in mathematics between students with disabilities and those without disabilities,…

Classroom engagement can be problematic for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing (DHH), but is essential to ensure that they can reach their best educational and postschool outcomes. This study used semi-structured interviews to explore the self-perceived barriers and facilitators to classroom engagement for 16 DHH students educated in…

This research sought to examine South African teachers' attitudes toward the inclusion of learners with different abilities in their hypothetical mainstream classrooms. Participants were 93 South African teachers who responded to the Teachers' Attitudes and Expectations Scale, a measure developed for this study, regarding four vignettes depicting…

Inclusion classrooms were introduced in the United States in 1990 when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act required that special education students be instructed in a general education setting. Ensuing changes in instructional formats have caused role confusion for special and general education teachers, resulted in mixed attitudes…

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree to which general education teachers in elementary schools believe they are prepared to teach children/students with specific special education exceptionalities in the general education classroom. The study addresses the exceptionalities of: autism, speech/language disorder, specific learning…

This study examined how general education teachers perceive the effectiveness of the Response to Intervention (RtI) approach to instruction in identifying students with learning disabilities early. The study also examined how these perceptions impact and influence general education teachers' ability to successfully implement RtI in the classroom.…

One important goal of Swedish educational policies is to integrate all pupils within regular education, irrespective of disability or difficulties in school, and to adjust education to individual needs. The aim of this paper was to explore how schools "socially construct", i.e. identify and support, pupils with special educational needs.…

Background: This study explored typically developing children's attitudes towards peers with intellectual disabilities, with special reference to the type of school they attended. Materials and Methods: Two hundred and fifty-six Greek children aged 9-10 (135 in inclusive settings) completed a questionnaire and an adjective list by Gash ("European…

This study addresses the convergent validity of a new teacher questionnaire to assess the social participation of students with special needs in regular primary schools. The Social Participation Questionnaire (SPQ) consists of four subscales representing four key themes of social participation: friendships/relationships, contacts/interactions,…

This article explores a Special Educational Needs Coordinator's experience of progressing from a "mainstream + SEN" approach to inclusion, defined as an extrinsically inclusive model, and perhaps more closely aligned to integration, towards a model of intrinsic inclusiveness. A three-tiered reading/spelling programme was implemented, using a…

The purpose of this study was to describe and explore the experience of inclusion of students with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic condition of a microdeletion on chromosome 7 which has medical, behavior, and cognitive issues. The study was conducted by gaining an understanding from the parents' point of view. The study was twofold. First, the…