A Comparative Study of Adhd Students in General Education and Resource Room Settings

Full inclusion is a movement based upon the notion that all students, regardless of the type of disability, should be educated entirely in the same general education classrooms as their same-age peers. Advocates of a policy of full inclusion believe that special education classrooms constitute a form of segregation and that separate classrooms for special education students are unequal. Kauffman’s (1999) theory on full inclusion is that it takes away from the interests of exceptional children. The demands placed on a regular classroom teacher’s time, the lack of concentrated support personnel, and the severity of children’s problems need to be considered before every child should be fully included in a general education setting. It should not be guided by overgeneralizations that each child can thrive in the same setting as his nondisabled peers. The current study examined the academic responding and completing responses of ADHD students in a general education and resource room setting. Resource rooms result in twice the level of academic engagement and half the level of competing responses than in the general education room. Both trends are necessary for the mastery of skills to occur. The results indicate that special education should remain an integral part of the school system, mainly for the students who benefit from its existence