Inclusive P.E. for Children with Special Needs

The article I chose is all about inclusion in physical education classes, called “Inclusive P.E. for Children with Special Needs.” (Found at http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art46155.asp ) The article basically lists the positive benefits of an inclusive classroom. First off, she discusses some of the immediate thoughts of a parent when they have a child who has special needs. Then she discusses some of the benefits of having a child who has special needs in sports and in an inclusive classroom. Children who have special needs can indeed have some great influences in attitude and the positive fun atmosphere in games. There are so many positive reasons for teachers as well because they can learn strategies and new ways of teaching from those that have special needs.

In my own experience and research, there are so many reasons to have children included in the mainstream physical education class. It can first of all simply help with the happiness of the child, because no one wants to be left out. Also, what a child with special needs can learn from those children in the mainstream class is enormous. That’s why peer tutors are so great, because what a child can learn from their peers as opposed to their teachers can be huge. To go along with this, I received a link to a video that I loved called The Butterfly Circus. It really shows how people can have a great influence on those that have disabilities, and the huge worth of people with disabilities. I encourage you to watch it, because it’s wonderful and very inspiring, but I will warn you it’s 20 minutes long. http://www.thedoorpost.com/hope/film/?film=4dd298f102c77b625cf37a9e7744ac68

However on the flip side, a lot of us are in an Adaptive P.E. Class here at BYU where we work with students who are not included in their school’s P.E. Class but in an Adapted P.E. Class. With all these advantages to inclusion, why do we not include these children? I know we’ve learned about Least Restrictive Environment, and for some children perhaps they can’t be in a mainstream P.E. Class, but with all these benefits of inclusion, shouldn’t we try our hardest to include them? We read an article in our Adaptive P.E. Class that talks about how simply training our P.E. teachers with certain skills, we could include children with special needs in our mainstream P.E. classes.

In my volunteering for Adaptive P.E., there are a lot of kids in the class who if they were in the regular P.E. class, they would fall quickly behind the other students and eventually, the teacher would probably have to begin teaching two different skills. They honestly would not be able to keep up with the other children, and it could cause a great difficulty in the class. Also, some of the games children play in the mainstream class, the children in the Adaptive P.E. class just can’t understand the rules or the purpose of the game, and having them in the mainstream class could cause a lot of problems and could potentially take too much of the teacher’s time away from the rest of the class.

So after all this, my question to you is this: Should we try harder to include those that are in an adaptive P.E. class into the mainstream? The benefits are obvious. Or should we try harder to have more adaptive P.E. classes, because there are many reasons that having children in the mainstream class could have its downfalls?

The use of physical restraint in the classroom

The topic I chose is the use of restraint in a classroom as a punishment technique. This article http://www.usnews.com/education/articles/2009/07/07/students-suffer-abusive-restraint-gao-says.html explains why restraint is not always a good idea. 

I agree with the article. Restraint is not a necessary classroom technique. The examples in the article are obviously extreme and would hopefully never happen under normal circumstances yet it has happened. I myself have found that there are times when the situation is made far worse by physically preventing the child from doing something, such as running away. I attempted to hold the student back because running away is a large ordeal, the police have to be called in and the student was terrified of the police which would exacerbate the situation. My restraint angered him so much that he began throwing items at me as well as flipping a table towards me and making motions as though about to strike me. All of this could have been avoided if I had let him leave the classroom. Later I learned that he was afraid to leave the campus and would walk around outside until he cooled off. If I had just let him go I could have saved myself a few bruises and could have talked to him calmly outside. 

I also agree that children should not be strapped into or onto anything. One of the students I work with has a disability that has held his IQ at about 18 months so, naturally, he acts like an 18 month old. When he came to our school a chair, that also looked like an electric chair, soon followed. It was used at his old school to prevent him from scooting away from the table when it was time to work. We did not like the look of the chair and soon got rid of it. Now the boy can sit for 20 minutes on his own. 

The question I have about this issue is should restraint be used at all in the classroom? I feel that if it is completely outlawed then any form of restraint will be outlawed including restraint that can prevent injury to the student or other students. The teacher could potentially be prosecuted for protecting one student from another. I feel that the law could go too far yet, some restrictions should be made to prevent injury, physically as well as mentally, to the students. It would be my opinion that dangerous holds, such as those in the prone position, be outlawed but mild holds in the sitting or standing, such as holding the hands to the side, only be used in extreme circumstances in which harm will certainly come to an individual. 

What do you think? Should restraint be used at all? If so what kinds and under what circumstances. If you do not think restraint should be used, why? 

February 5, 2010 Class Blog

The Benefits of Teaching Chess to Special Education Students
Chess has been said to improve the cognitive skills of children and teenagers. I wanted to know if chess would also help improve the cognitive skills of children and teens with special needs. I could not find any recent official studies on the matter, but I found some personal testimonials from teachers that it helped their students.
The first link I found, http://chessineducation-chessteacher.blogspot.com/2008/01/chess-helps-learning-disabled.html , describes some of the social benefits of playing Chess. If a student is enrolled in a chess program it allows them to meet others and even encourages those without disabilities to help those with disabilities. It is also a fun activity that can be a reward for learning disabled children. Being enrolled in chess would also let students play with their own skill level.
Another teacher described some more of the cognitive benefits and describes how well her students have improved. http://chessineducation-chessteacher.blogspot.com/2008/12/its-our-move.html . From what I’ve read in these articles I feel that teaching children to play chess in their spare time would be beneficial for the, social, concentration, and learning skills of the student.
I found one study that had been found on the effect of chess on special education students. Educators at the Roberto Clemente School (C.I.S. 166) in New York report that chess has improved not only academic scores, but social performance as well. In 1988, Joyce Brown, an assistant principal and supervisor of the school’s Special Education department, and teacher Florence Mirin began studying the effect of chess on their Special Education students. When the study began, they had 15 children enrolled in chess classes; two years later they had 398-
“The effects have been remarkable,” Brown says. “Not only have the reading and math skills of these children soared, their ability to socialize has increased substantially, too. Our studies have shown that incidents of suspension. and outside altercations have decreased by at least 60% since these children became interested in chess.”(http://www.knowledge-first.org/Chess%20Improves%20Academic%20performance.pdf )
Do you think that chess would benefit special needs children? If so, do you think teachers should teach it in the classroom? Or should there be programs outside of school that students can enroll in? If you don’t think chess would be any more beneficial than regular schooling, why not?