Journal of Behavioral Education, VoL 2, No. 3, 1992, pp. 219-224
Guest Editorial
Applied Behavior Analysis and the Mainstreaming Movement Saul Axelrod, Ph.D. 1,2 Accepted." April 17, 1992
Action Editor: Nirbhay N.. Singh
The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 (Public Law 94-142) and its recent amendments (Public Law 99-457) require that public school systems provide a free, appropriate education for all children. For youngsters with severe disabilities, who were often excluded from the schools in the past, the law granted them a free, public education. For many students with mild disabilities, the legislation meant that they would move from self-contained special education classrooms into regular classrooms (see Lloyd, Singh, & Repp, 1991). There were several arguments for the mainstreaming effort. First, studies examining the efficacy of special education classes to educate children with educable mental retardation found them inferior to, or equal to, regular classrooms containing children with educable mental retardation (Goldstein, Moss, & Jordan, 1965). Similar findings occurred with children with behavior disorders (Rubin, Senison, & Betwee, 1966). To a degree, these studies raised the question as to whether educators could produce normal behavior in a non-normal environment. A second reason for mainstreaming is that it was found that a disproportionate number of minority students were in classes for students with educable mental retardation (Dunn, 1968), This practice was seen as violating the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education ruling in which the Supreme Court outlawed racially segregated schools. In addition, there was considerable suspicion that the students who were removed from the regular classroom were not necessarily the most academically disabled, but rather the most difficult to manage. Finally, there was the ethical issue that all people, regardless of disability, IProfessor, Special Education Program, Temple University. 2Correspondence should be directed to Saul Axelrod, Special Education Program, College of Education, Temple University, 287 Ritter Annex (004-00), Philadelphia, PA 19122. 219 1053.0819-92/0900-0219506.50/0 9 1992Human SciencesPress, Inc,
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have the right to engage fully in the American experience and that any form of segregation was inequitable. Several advantages were predicted for the mainstreaming movement. Students with disabilities would make academic and behavioral gains due to appropriate peer models and higher teacher expectations; integration would remove stigmatizing labels; students would be able to attend neighborhood schools, facilitating community social integration; teachers would become more skillful, benefitting all students; and the public would save money due to the elimination of costly special education classrooms. There is considerable emotional appeal to the mainstreaming movement. Yet, there was probably similar appeal to the movement to segregate children with disabilities earlier in the twentieth century (e.g., "place them in small, nurturant classrooms with specially trained teachers who care"). It should be realized that the contemporary mainstreaming movement was not born of its own success. It was born of the failure of segregated education, just as segregated education was born of the failure of earlier attempts at integration. How successful then have recent efforts been to mainstream children with disabilities? There are some who would argue that the question should not be raised. Neither women nor African Americans were given the right to vote because it was assumed that they would be happier or wealthier as a result of their entitlement. Nor was it argued that the nation would elect superior public officials as a result of the inclusionary practice. Rather, suffrage was seen as a basic right, regardless of what people chose to do with it. Similarly, academic integration can be seen as a basic right, regardless of its outcomes. Thus, the question is not whether segregation or mainstreaming is superior, but how to make regular classrooms effective for children with disabilities. Still, people want to know how well mainstreaming works, and certainly the movement will gain more momentum if there is evidence of its efficacy. Studies evaluating the effectiveness of mainstreaming have been mixed. Some studies (e.g., Gottlieb, 1981; Gresham, 1982) found mainstreaming to be ineffective in educating children with disabilities, whereas others (e.g., Walker, 1974) found no differences between special education and regular classrooms. More comprehensively, Wang, Anderson, and Bram (1985) conducted a metaanalysis of 50 studies involving about 3,400 students across all grade levels. The study concluded that regular classroom performance was superior to special class placement according to both academic and social measures. The gains were greater with full-time rather than part-time placement. A more recent study by Hundert and Houghton (1992) found that mainstreamed children with disabilities increased their rate of positive social interaction to levels comparable to their peers without
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disabilities. Also, Truesdell and Abramson (1992) found that mainstreamed students in three classrooms, in grades three to nine, did as well, or close to it, as their regular classroom peers. Overall, mainstreaming seems to be holding its own, but in many cases the results are mixed or modest (Salend, 1990). An examination of behaviorally-based mainstreaming programs presents a more impressive picture of outcomes. Consulting teacher programs based on behavioral principles at the University of Vermont (McKenzie et al., 1970) provided early demonstrations that it was possible to train educators to integrate students with academic and management problems into regular classrooms. A little known study by Lew, Mesch, and Lates (1982) replicated the consulting teacher model in Boston area public schools and found that 143 students made an average of 3.4 years academic growth in one year. The consulting teacher model continues to be a useful one with refinements in the approach recently described by Gersten, Darch, Davis, & George (1991). Also, comprehensive research on Direct Instruction (DI) procedures found the behaviorally based system to be superior to eight other approaches on academic skill and self concept measures (Gersten, Carnine, & White, 1984). And, issue after issue of the Direct Instruction News (1982-present) shows that with DI training children of poverty can perform at the same academic level as children from higher socioeconomic backgrounds. Similar claims can be made with the classwide peer tutoring procedure employed through the Juniper Gardens Children's Project of the University of Kansas (Greenwood, Carta, & Hall, 1988). An analysis of the components of Public Law 94-142 reveals a close correspondence between the legislation and behavioral practices. The law requires nondiscriminatory evaluation. Behaviorists achieve this by counting behaviors and using curriculum-based measurement (Deno & Fuchs, 1988), rather than relying on standardized, normative intelligence and achievement tests. The law requires an Individualized Educational Plan for special services. This incorporates the long-standing behavioral practice of specifying instructional objectives (Mager, 1962). The law states that children with disabilities receive an appropriate education. This is only achievable with procedures powerful enough to: a) overcome the effects of environments that are not conducive to academic success; and b) compensate for the fact that many of these children lag behind their classmates by several years academically. Only behavior analysis procedures can claim such effectiveness. Also, if one views mainstreaming as an active teaching process rather than a relocation effort, again the behavioral approach is appropriate. Behaviorism does not simply reject mentalism, it also rejects waiting around for good things to happen and encouraging teachers to have better attitudes toward students they can neither teach nor manage. Thus, in
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addition to providing strategies for teaching academics, behavior analysis has offered a plethora of procedures, many of which are simple and inexpensive, for reducing classroom disruption and improving social interaction skills (e.g., Walker, McConnell, Holmes, Walker, & Golden, 1983). How then can applied behavior analysis be more instrumental in making mainstreaming a more pervasive, educational success? One suggestion is that we have our procedures and writings evaluated for their social validity by regular educators. Many of our behavioral strategies were developed in small special education classrooms where the teachers had some training in applied behavior analysis. Regular education teachers without the behavior analysis background and with larger numbers of students might find the procedures more foreign and less useful to them. If teachers try our procedures and tell us they are hard to use, and if they complain that articles with S-dees, S-deltas, and S-R-plusses give them headaches, we must take this into account when we recommend procedures and write manuscripts. If we do this, we will be listening to the consumers of our work and not just to each other. In reading the cooperative learning literature (Johnston & Johnston, 1986; Slavin, 1990), I am frequently frustrated by the fact although the authors appear to be using behavioral procedures, such as group contingencies, they seldom use behavioral language. If their procedures are receiving greater acceptance by regular educators, however (as it seems to me they are), this is important information to note. Whenever possible, we should reinforce the mainstreaming efforts of regular educators. Organizations such as the Council for Exceptional Children could give out awards to regular education teachers, administrators, and professors for the mainstreaming achievements. When regular educators suggest procedures for increasing the likelihood that a mainstreaming effort will be successful, we could use our research methodology to test such ideas and co-publish the ones that prove helpful. It is likely that their suggestions will include the use of rap sessions, workshops, and speakers with disabilities. These approaches have no particular relevance to applied behavior analysis and all might be less powerful than existing behavioral procedures. Yet, even if they prove to be only moderately helpful, they will at least have the advantage of being socially valid (Schwartz & Baer, 1991). We should also encourage regular educators to be the parties responsible for bringing about mainstreaming. To some extent this has already been done. For example, in the Gersten et al. (1991) study, the consulting teachers were all volunteer, regular education teachers with at least 10 years experience teaching low achieving students. It is important that we constantly evaluate our procedures to determine the factors that will make them most acceptable to regular educators.
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Certainly it is not surprising that the most efficient strategies are the most acceptable (Reimers, Walker, & Koeppl, 1987). Other important factors are the amount of extra time it takes to use a procedure (Brown, 1988), the degree to which the procedures produce a quick improvement in behavior, and the compatibility of the strategy with the teacher's ongoing routine (Margolis & McGettigan, 1988). It is evident from Public Law 94-142 that effective mainstreaming involves the collaboration of regular and special educators. Thus, special educators providing behavior consultation must study the communication process, since even the best advice can encounter resistance (Witt & Elliot, !985). Solutions to this problem include using a collaborative, rather than an expert, model of consultation (Rosenfield, 1991); reducing the use of jargon (Dorr, 1977); and establishing informal, friendly interactions outside the classroom (Martin, 1978). Effective communication is an area to which behaviorists have paid little attention, but it may be crucial in achieving adherence to recommendations and disseminating the technology. Finally, behaviorists teaching in university special education programs should attempt to become part of regular education departments. This would help to blur the distinction between regular and special education; special education could be seen as an effective methodology for all educators, rather than a location in the corner of the school. Applied behavior analysis has the capacity to achieve all the mainstreaming mandates of Public Law 94-142, but first it has to become part of the mainstream itself.
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Gottlieb, J. (1981). Mainstreaming: Fulfilling the promise? American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 86, 115-126. Greenwood, C. R. Carta, J. J., & Hall, R. V. (1988). The use of peer tutoring strategies in classroom management and instruction. School Psychology Review, 17, 258-275. Gresham, F. (1982). Misguided mainstreaming: The case for social skills training with handicapped children. Exceptional Children, 48, 422-433. Hundert, J., & Houghton, A. (1992). Promoting social interaction of children with disabilities in integrated preschools: A failure to generalize. Exceptional Children, 58, 311-320. Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1986). Mainstreaming and cooperative learning strategies. Exceptional Children, 52, 553-561. Lew, M. B., Mesch, D. J., & Lates, B. J. (1982). The Simmons College Generic Consulting Teacher Program: A program description and data based application. Teacher Education and Special Education, 5, 11-16. Lloyd, J. W. Singh, N. N., & Repp, A. C. (1991). The regular education initiative: Alternative perspectives on concepts issues, and methods. Sycamore, IL: Sycamore Publishing Co. Mager, R. F. (1962). Preparing instructional objectives. Palo Alto, CA: Fearon Publishers. Margolis, H., & McGettigan, J. (1988). Managing resistance to instructional modifications in mainstreamed environments. Remedial and Special Education, 9, 15-21, Martin, R. (1978). Expert and reference power: A framework for understanding and maximizing consultation effectiveness. Journal of School Psychology, 16, 49-55. McKenzie, H. S. Egner, A. N. Knight, M. F. Perelman, P. F. Schneider, B. M., & Garvin, J. S. (1970). Training consulting teachers to assist elementary teachers in the management and education of handicapped children. Exceptional Children, 36, 137-143. Reimers, T. M. Walker, D. P., & Koeppl, G. (1987). Acceptability of behavioral applications: A review of the literature. School Psychology Review, 16, 212-227. Rosenfield, S. (1991). The relationship variable in behavioral consultation. Journal of Behavioral Education, 1, 329-336. Rubin, E. Z. Senison, C. B., & Betwee, M. C. (1966). Emotionally handicapped children in the elementary school Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Salend, S. J. (1990). Effective mainstreaming. New York: MacMillan. Schwartz, I. S., & Baer, D. M. (1991). Social validity assessments: Is current practice state of the art? Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 24, 189-213. Slavin, R. E. (1990). Cooperative learning: Theory, research, and practice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Truesdell, L. A., & Abramson, T. (1992). Academic behavior and grades of mainstreamed students with mild disabilities. Exceptional Children, 58, 392-398. Walker, H. M. McConnell, S. Holmes, D. Walker, B., & Golden, N. (1983). The Walker social skills curriculum: The ACCEPTS program. Austin, TX: Pro Ed. Walker, V. S. (1974). The efficacy of the resource room for educating retarded children. Exceptional Children, 40, 288-289. Wang, M. C. Anderson, K. A., & Bram, P. J. (1985). Toward an empirical data base on mainstreaming: A research synthesis of program implementation and effects. Pittsburgh: Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh. Witt, J. C., & Elliot, S. N. (1985). Acceptability of classroom intervention strategies. In T. Kratachwill (Ed.), Advances in school psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 251-288). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.