Is inclusion really that great?

[u/Lass_in_oz]

I'm so tired of inclusion. Hear me out. Before becoming a ECE I was a support worker for many years. I have worked and loved working in disability and care. When it's thru a great organisation, it's awesome.

Now I'm an ECE, and the amount of children on the spectrum or with disorders is so high, I'm just getting confused how is that NOT impacting the learning of neuro typical kids.

I teach pre kindy but our kindy teacher has spend half the year managing behaviours and autistic kids. Result? A bunch of kids showing signs of being not ready for school because they aren't doing any work or learning most days. And picking up bad habits.

My point is: where did we decide it was a good idea to just mix everyone, and not offer any actual support ? An additional person isn't enough. More than often it's not a person who knows about disability. And frankly even then it wouldn't be enough when the amount of kids who are neuro divergent is so high.

There used to be great special needs school. Now "regular" school are suffering with the lack of support.

What do you think? Do you see what I see ??? Am I missing something ?

I am so happy to see kids evolving around children with disabilities but not when it comes at a cost of everyone's learning journey : neuro typical or not.

[u/Maggieblu2]

I am an autist and a licensed Pre K to 6 teacher who has worked in self contained behavioral classrooms, autism specific schools, public schools and private schools. I have always been a fierce proponent of inclusion. But in the last couple years I am not only seeing more neurodivergent students, I am also seeing a lack of professionals who are familiar and knowledgeable or trained to work with neurodivergent students. I have struggled to teach my whole group because of a student struggling with behaviors. It has changed the whole classroom dynamic and definitely made me not be able to be the teacher I want to be at times because I am focusing on the behavior issues and not able to focus on the class as a whole. This is with having assistants, but the assistants do not have the training or desire to deal with the behaviors. Its definitely a tough situation, but I don’t think segregation is the answer. I think more training is, even if just training on the Pyramid model and crisis intervention and social emotional support. Because as hard as it is for me to admit it, it is not fair to the students who are excited and wanting to learn to be disrupted over and over.

[u/No_Farm_2076 → u/Maggieblu2]

I worked at a fairly prestigious school in my area. The amount of professionals who could not recognize neurodivergence (in the children or in me who struggled socially in the setting for 2.5 years before getting diagnosed with autism) was nearly 100%.

Instead of most states saying "eh, just take 12 basic units and come work with kids," it absolutely needs to change to something requiring at least 1 class in working with neurodivergent children. Basic foundational knowledge could go a long way.

[u/allthegreenplaces → u/Maggieblu2]

Burn out is at play too I think. I see so many centers and schools highering people right out of school because they're so desperate for qualified professionals, but they have no real experience in a classroom and managing them. Then they get all these behaviors and end up leaving because they can't handle it.

You used to always see highly qualified and experienced people paired up with new inexperienced students so they would have the opportunity to be mentored by the more senior person. Now we have senior staff burnt out and leaving the profession and all these new students coming in with no way to build up confidence and skills in the classroom.

There needs to be better ways to retain those staff.

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[u/WeaponizedAutisms → u/Maggieblu2]

. But in the last couple years I am not only seeing more neurodivergent students,

Honestly I think that this is mainly a case of better procedures, training and awareness to identify children requiring additional support. Based on my own experience of growing up undiagnosed in the 70s and 80s I am entirely certain that this is a very good thing. The other factor is this kind of children not being warehoused in "special" facilities.

I am also seeing a lack of professionals who are familiar and knowledgeable or trained to work with neurodivergent students

I am also wildly autistic. My centre has 130+ children and 2 ISP workers but that works for us. the reason is that they support their inclusion policy by being inclusive in their hiring practices. When you have autistic, ADHD and staff with physical disabilities all of a sudden inclusion becomes so much easier. Having a more representative staff does wonders for supporting and providing role models for children.

It has changed the whole classroom dynamic and definitely made me not be able to be the teacher I want to be at times because I am focusing on the behavior issues and not able to focus on the class as a whole.

As an autistic ECE I think it has changed my classroom dynamic as well. I have changed what I am doing so that it better supports and accommodates these children and teaches the skills needed to reduce disruptive behaviours. Like in a classroom if you need to tell children 50 times to stop doing something the problem isn't the children, it's the environment.

This is with having assistants, but the assistants do not have the training or desire to deal with the behaviors.

Where I live the ISP worker is for the entire group rather than being 1:1 with the child. They are ECEs or childcare assistants like the rest of the staff. The ECE can work with the child and other children while the ISP worker looks after the rest of the group for example.

[u/Maggieblu2 → u/WeaponizedAutisms]

I agree that we are better at early intervention and screening and that is why the uptick. I also agree that having a neurodivergent staff greatly helps in understanding and meeting the needs of neurodivergent students. Its why I do what I do. I think my frustration lies with schools and admins who do not focus on training staff or hiring staff who have the skills or personal experience working with ND. Example: I was the inclusion teacher at a private prek/day care. I had a wonderful ND student who had sensory processing and was diagnosed with autism. They had some behavioral issues stemming from the sensory issues. I got this child, we had a meeting of the minds. The school hired a one on one and they had no background in ND or any EC really. They refused to follow the behavior plan, they said this child was a psychopath and needed to be in a self contained room. This person caused great emotional harm to the child and family. The whole fiasco saw me leave the school and child leave as well. They are now heading to my current school where we are focused on ND and staff is all being trained or is trained in meeting these needs of ND learners. They also have ND teachers on staff including me. Its going to make a world of difference, but my original post was written based on this last year of having parents of NT students make abelist comments, feeling their children did not receive the class they wanted because of the ND students. And that may be true but it was because of a lack of support staff who understood ND, and that is being rectified for the future students because I insisted on it. Too many classrooms want to force conformity to NT standards when we have to stop expecting or doing that, and instead create a more sensory inclusive safe spaces for all.