SPECIAL STUDENTS: INCLUSION HELPS DIABLED CHILDREN DEVELOP

Cherri Bertrand teaches the educable mentally disabled at Washington, and Angela Snider is in her class.

Angela Snider is an expert at coloring in the lines, but she does well in science and other subjects, too.

Mainstreaming. Least restrictive environment. Inclusion.

The terminology may change with the political correctness of the day, but the idea stays the same: Keep students, regardless of their disabilities, with other students their own age as much as possible.

Since the mid-1970s, federal law has required school districts to do just that.

In Cape Girardeau public schools, an Individual Education Program team gathers to determine what each disabled student needs. There are 13 classifications for disabilities, ranging from visual impairment to emotional disturbance.

The I.E.P. team is composed of the parents, a school administrator or counselor, a classroom teacher, someone knowledgeable about the suspected disability and someone who can test the child.

Each of the school district's 610 exceptional students has been through the evaluation process, Director of Special Services Betty Chong said. About 300 of them, the majority, were diagnosed with specific learning disabilities. Another 48 are mentally challenged.

These students usually spend most of the day in special classrooms with only a few other children, allowing for more individual attention. All of them spend at least lunch, recess, music, physical education and art periods with students in regular classrooms.

Others go to regular classes for math, science or social studies, depending on their abilities.

Darla Snider, a third-grade teacher at Washington Elementary, said her students readily accept visitors from Cherri Bertrand's class. Bertrand is one of Washington's teachers of the educable mentally disabled.

Both Bertrand and Snider said including special students in regular classrooms is good for all involved. Snider noted that the special students in her class act more maturely when they are around children their own age.

"If you came into my class, you wouldn't be able to recognize some of them," she said.

Nine-year-old Angela Snider, no relation to her regular-classroom teacher, is a special education student who leaves Bertrand to do regular work for awhile each day. She recently made an 83 percent on a science test when it was read to her.

Angela's mother, Lisa Snider, said her daughter was diagnosed with mild retardation at the end of the first grade. Since she was placed in Bertrand's class, Snider has learned to read and do many other age-appropriate activities.

"She used to get so upset and say, `Mom, I sure wish I could read,'" Lisa Snider said. "They have done wonderful work with her at Washington."

These days, several parents are telling school districts in the United States to completely integrate their children with regular classrooms. To do that, the children must have constant attention from teachers' aides.

Nobody is sure whether this will become the next trend in educating mentally disabled children.

"It depends on how much the taxpayers want to support it," Darla Snider said. "It would be very expensive."