The benefits of inclusive education

· Students with disabilities can acquire basic communication and motor skills through interactions with peers without disabilities who provide them with cues, prompts and consequences.
· Findings suggested that students with disabilities in mainstreamed classrooms made greater overall academic gains than did their peers with similar disabilities in segregated classrooms
· The inclusive classrooms focused instruction to a significant extent on academics (72% of the time) as compared to the segregated setting (24% of the time). Peer to peer instruction was more common in inclusive (18%) than in segregated settings.
· Students with disabilities can learn, be accepted and interact with other students in their environment
· Inclusion facilitates more appropriate social behaviour because of higher expectations in the general education classroom.
· Inclusion promotes levels of achievement higher or at least as high as those achieved in self-contained classrooms.
· Inclusion offers a wide circle of support including social support from classmates without disabilities.
· Improves the ability of students and teachers to adapt to different teaching and learning styles.
· Students with disabilities in inclusive classrooms talked and spent more time with their schoolmates while engaged in particular activities that students in special education classrooms.
· Studies indicate that students in inclusive settings avoided low self-esteem that can result from placement in a special education setting.
· Social competence and communication skills improve in inclusive settings.

For more information on Inclusive education go to :http://inclusiveeducation.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/07/Commentary-Booklet-FINAL.pdf