Abstract
Research supports the benefits of inclusive education for all students, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). Additionally, educators are supportive of the idea of including students with IDD in general education classrooms. However, they report many barriers to doing so, including a lack of a systematic process to plan for successful inclusive experiences. In this article, we present a systematic process for identifying and arranging supports for successful inclusive educational experiences for students with IDD.
Isaiah is an 8-year-old, third-grade student who receives special education services under the eligibility category of autism. Prior to the current school year, he spent most of his school day in a separate special education classroom. Isaiah’s teachers were involved in a professional development session during which they learned about the benefits of inclusive education for all students, including those with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD). After this session, and with encouragement from Isaiah’s parents, his educational team decides to include Isaiah in the general education third-grade classroom for a variety of subjects, including language arts. Isaiah has many strengths, including his ability to decode single-syllable words, draw detailed illustrations, and follow visual schedules, but requires extensive support to decode and comprehend grade-level text and engage in on-task behavior. His special education teacher, Mrs. Woods, has many questions about how to determine which supports will be most effective for Isiah, who will be responsible for planning and implementing these supports, and how Isaiah can have a meaningful experience in the general education setting. She also is concerned because she is unaware of whether her school and other teachers have an established, systematic process that she could follow to identify supports to promote inclusion in the general education setting.
The Need for a Systematic Process to Plan Individualized Supports
Isaiah’s case is not unusual. Although most students with IDD spend a majority of their school day in segregated settings (U.S. Department of Education, 2021), research supports the benefits of inclusive education for all students, including those with IDD (Gee et al., 2020; Mansouri et al., 2022). Compared to students with IDD in segregated settings, students with IDD in inclusive settings have improved academic and social progress and increased access to the general education curriculum (Gee et al., 2020; Mansouri et al., 2022). Although educators, including special education teachers, general education teachers, and administrators, may value including students in general education classrooms, they may have limited knowledge, resources, and access to a systematic process to successfully plan supports for students with IDD in these settings (Jung et al., 2019; Thompson et al., 2020). Teachers also have suggested both the special education teacher and general education teacher would benefit from an in-depth understanding of the student’s support needs and the general education classroom environment as well as dedicated time and a systematic process to plan for successful inclusive experiences (Thompson et al., 2020).
Although educators may value including students with intellectual disabilities in general education classrooms, they may have limited knowledge, resources, and access to a systematic process to successfully plan supports.
The Systematic Supports Planning Process
The Systematic Supports Planning Process (SSPP; Thompson et al., 2018) is a structured, collaborative, problem-solving process that guides teams through planning and implementing supports for the successful inclusion of students with IDD in general education academic classes (see Figure 1 ). The SSPP directly addresses the need for an efficient, systematic process that incorporates a comprehensive profile of the student’s abilities and support needs and general education setting (Thompson et al., 2020). A checklist of steps in the SSPP is illustrated in Figure 2 .
Systematic Supports Planning Process (SSPP)
Supports planning checklist
Based on a recommendation from a colleague at another school, Mrs. Woods decides to work through the SSPP to plan and arrange supports for Isaiah during language arts in the third-grade general education classroom for phonics and vocabulary instruction. During this time, the intent is that Isaiah will learn to read with greater fluency and participate in all academic activities with his peers in the general education classroom.
Preplanning
The first step in planning supports through the SSPP for students with IDD in inclusive general education settings is to form a team. At a minimum, the team should consist of the special education teacher and general education teacher. The team also may need to consider other supports a student will need in the classroom, such as communication supports or physical adaptations. In these cases, the team should include related services providers and other relevant professionals, such as a speech language pathologist, an occupational therapist, or a physical therapist, who can share their expertise. Because the student and their family have a unique perspective, every effort should be made to include them as part of the team.
Once the team is formed, all members need to have a clear understanding of the support needs of the student and the general education classroom context. Often, the special education teacher has knowledge of the student’s needs, and the general education teacher can offer detailed information about the general education classroom, including classroom expectations, learning activities, and instructional goals (Thompson et al., 2020). However, it is critical that all team members have a shared understanding of the student and the context in which they will be expected to learn.
Initially, Mrs. Woods does not know much about the context and content of the third-grade general education classroom Isaiah will join. In fact, she has not yet identified a third-grade general education teacher with whom to collaborate. Mrs. Woods’s classroom was in the third-grade hallway, where she consistently observed Mr. Jackson, a third-grade general education teacher, interacting with all students regardless of their support needs. Mrs. Woods starts by having a conversation about inclusion with Mr. Jackson. After sharing some of the information about the benefits of inclusion for students with IDD and information about Isaiah, Mrs. Woods and Mr. Jackson agree to work together with Isaiah and his parents to engage in the SSPP to support Isaiah in Mr. Jackson’s third-grade language arts class. They ask Isaiah’s speech pathologist to consult with the team given Isaiah’s needs in the are of communication. By identifying their team, Mrs. Woods and Mr. Jackson completed the first step on the SSPP checklist (Figure 2).
Next, the team completes the Supports Intensity Scale-Children’s Version (SIS-C; Thompson et al., 2016). The SIS-C is a valid and reliable assessment (Shogren et al., 2017) that, in contrast to other assessments for children with IDD, focuses on a student’s need for support rather than their deficits. The SIS-C measures the type of support (i.e., “monitoring” to “full physical support”), intensity of support (i.e., “rarely needed” to “always needed”), and daily support time (i.e., “0 min” to “more than 4 hr”) a child would need to engage in school, community, and home activities (Thompson et al., 2016). Information from the SIS-C offers the team insight into the amount and type of support the student will need to meaningfully participate in the general education setting. This is an important first step in understanding the student’s needs, and the SIS-C also helps frame the supports planning process around student need for support and how the student will participate (as opposed to whether the student should participate). Additionally, the SIS-C offers an opportunity for everyone on the team, including teachers, family members, and the student, to contribute to understanding the student’s support needs that will guide the planning process.
The team also will need to understand the student’s preferences, which can be accomplished through different types of preference assessments, including interviews, questionnaires, observations, and systematic preference assessments for students who have more complex support needs (for more information on systematic preference assessments, see Cannella-Malone et al., 2013; Chazin & Ledford, 2016). The ultimate goal is to gather direct input from the student about things they like and do not like related to school activities and potential reinforcers. Finally, the team needs to understand the context of the general education classroom by completing an ecological inventory. By observing the general education classroom (if possible) and talking about the activities, physical arrangement, social and behavioral expectations, and student interactions within the general education setting, the team can better understand the learning environment in relation to the focus student’s support needs. By collaborating to collect and share preassessment data, the whole team can share a more comprehensive understanding of the student and the context in which they will learn.
Teams need to gather information about the student and the general education learning environment in order to consider three categories of supports to promote a meaningful inclusive experience by identifying and implementing: curricular adaptations, instructional supports, and participation supports.
Isaiah’s team completes the SIS-C, an interview-based preference assessment, and an ecological inventory to understand his support needs and the general education environment. This gives them an idea of where Isaiah needs support and how some of his nonacademic individualized education program (IEP) goals may be integrated into ongoing activities. The results of the SIS-C indicate Isaiah always benefits from always having verbal or gestural prompting to access the general education curriculum, and the time required to provide this support across the school day is greater than 4 hr. The results also indicate he does not require any additional support to keep track of his school schedule. The ecological inventory revealed that there are several times throughout the day that students rotate in small groups through centers to work on various literacy activities. Isaiah indicate through the preference assessment that he liked working on the same activities as his peers.
Plan Development
After the team gathers information about the student and the general education learning environment, they will need to consider three categories of supports to promote a meaningful inclusive experience. Through a systematic process, the team will ask critical questions and identify essential actions for identifying and implementing curricular adaptations, instructional supports, and participation supports (see Figure 1). A selected portion of Isaiah’s support plan, which includes all three types of supports, is provided in Figure 3.
Selected portions of an example supports plan
Curricular adaptations
The team will begin by determining which, if any, curricular adaptations are needed. Curricular adaptations are adjustments to curriculum that is taught in the general education classroom and includes prioritizing the curricular objectives aligned to the state-adopted general education standards and incorporating specific learning goals for the student (Thompson et al., 2022). To identify curricular adaptations, the team first identifies state-adopted general education standards that will be addressed in the class and that all students are expected to learn. Isaiah’s team lists several expectations for all students during the language arts block for the upcoming unit on nonfiction texts (see Figure 3). Then, for each of the identified academic expectations, the team discusses whether the focus student will be expected to master the same expectation or an adapted expectation. If the team determines the focus student is expected to master the same expectation, curricular adaptations are not necessary for that academic expectation. However, if the team determines the focus student will need an adapted expectation, they will create an adapted expectation that is still aligned to the state-adopted general education standard but incorporates the student’s current support needs and academic performance. Isaiah’s team decides all expectations will be adapted. The expectations are still directly aligned with the state-adopted general education standards but also incorporate Isaiah’s current reading level and support needs (see Figure 3).
Next, the team determines if additional personalized learning goals are needed. Personalized learning goals are not directly associated with the state-adopted general education standards but often are IEP goals that could be taught alongside the general education curriculum (Thompson et al., 2022). Often, these are related to social and communication skills. For example, with input from Isaiah about his preference for interacting with peers and desire to do so more often, the team determines he could work on his IEP goals related to conversation skills within the context of the third-grade language arts lesson. The team also decides that it would be appropriate to address an academic IEP goal to write a complete sentence with correct capitalization and punctuation about the main idea of a passage read aloud during the class. Because his team took time to understand the context of the general education classroom before planning, both teachers knew there was daily time for discussion in small groups during the language arts class.
Instructional supports
Next, teams will determine necessary instructional supports. Instructional supports are the teaching strategies and materials that allow a student to maximize their learning in the general education classroom (Thompson et al., 2022). To plan instructional supports, the general education teacher will identify the learning activities that will be used within the upcoming unit in their class. A taxonomy of learning activity types (Harris & Hofer, n.d.) can be very helpful during this process for understanding the expectations and processes the focus student will encounter. For the third-grade language arts class Isaiah will attend, Mr. Jackson lists several learning activities he plans to use for the upcoming unit (see Figure 3).
After the team identifies the learning activities for the unit, they will determine if the focus student will complete the activities in the same manner as all other students or if additional supports will be needed to meaningfully participate in those activities. It is important to remember that the student will participate in all learning activities in the class even if additional supports are needed. Isaiah’s team determines he will need additional supports to participate in the think-pair-share and activities to develop phonics and phonemic awareness. These additional supports often reflect evidence-based practices for students with IDD (e.g., visual supports, prompting, task analysis; Steinbrenner et al., 2020). Specifically, the team believes Isaiah will benefit from sentence starters, visual supports, question stems, and graphic organizers to participate in the various learning activities (see Figure 3).
Participation supports
Finally, after the team has decided on necessary curricular adaptations and instructional supports, they will discuss participation supports. Participation supports are any other supports necessary for students to fully participate in the general education setting and should promote student engagement and belongingness (Thompson et al., 2022). These supports will vary across students and may include adjustments to schedules to optimize student participation, peer support arrangements, behavioral intervention plans, health care supports, communication supports, assistive technology, and schoolwide supports (e.g., schoolwide positive behavioral interventions and supports). The team will discuss the ongoing activities and routines in the general education setting, such as transitions, clean-up routines, and social interactions, and what, if any, additional support the focus student will need to meaningfully participate in all aspects of the class.
For Isaiah, the team determines he will require additional behavioral supports, including a visually supported written schedule and visual supports to help him maintain personal space (see Figure 3). The team also decides Isaiah would benefit from visually supported sentence starters to help him greet his peers and engage in conversation with them because Isaiah rarely responds to his peers’ greetings, which seemed to affect relationships with classmates. The team suggests a paraprofessional to support his social interaction and behavior. However, the family did not want Isaiah to be dependent on an adult, and during the preference assessment, Isaiah expressed that he did not like being singled out from his peers. Therefore, the team decides to meet his behavioral support needs in other ways.
Monitoring
After teams complete the planning process, they implement the supports outlined in the plan. While implementing supports, team members will briefly check in with one another on a weekly basis to determine whether supports are adequate or adjustments are needed. If supports are in place and effectively supporting the student, these check-ins can be as quick as 10 minutes. However, if supports need to be modified or adjusted, meetings might last up to 30 minutes. Teams begin weekly meetings with discussion of the student and their supports in the general education setting. Often an anecdote or specific example provides a jumping off point as the team discusses the student’s week in class. Next, the team will discuss more specifically supports that worked well, were inadequate, or need to be changed. It is possible that a given support worked well, but additional tweaks might be needed. For example, Isaiah’s team discusses the success of his visual schedule during a weekly meeting but note that unplanned interruptions can cause a problem. The team decides to add a new visual to Isaiah’s schedule that indicates an interruption and allows him to continue to use his schedule.
This step also should include discussions around implementation fidelity. For example, if the team notices a specific support was not implemented as planned, they should discuss ways in which assistance can be provided to those responsible for developing and implementing the support. Finally, the team will record any additional notes related to follow-up actions, comments, or questions. It will be important for the team to explore perceptions of the feasibility and appropriateness of supports across all team members, including the student and family members. For example, during a check-in meeting, Isaiah expresses that he enjoys being able to do the same assignments as his peers, and he likes that a paraprofessional did not have to follow him to the class. The ongoing process continues in this way weekly, allowing the team to make adjustments and respond collaboratively to a student’s experiences. The SSPP is designed to be a cyclical process where educators may revisit assessments or critical questions (see Figure 1) at any point to adjust and improve the supports for the student. When any significant changes are needed to the plan, the team should communicate to all members, including the student and their family.
Considerations to Support Planning
Aside from these procedural aspects, there are several important aspects to supports planning that teams should consider. It is important teachers critically examine the needs of the focus student in relation to curricular and social demands of the general education environment. First, when planning supports, the team needs to determine the correct level of support. It is important the focus student has enough support to participate meaningfully in all activities in the class and make progress toward their goals. However, it is important not to provide too much support so that the student is not required to complete work to the best of their individual ability. Preserving time for regular team meetings allows the team to respond to the student’s performance and ensure appropriate levels of support. Not only should the supports match the needs of the student, but they should also match the preferences of the student. Students may have preferences about the supports they receive, specifically when it comes to the social perception of some supports. In Isaiah’s case, the team originally planned to have a one-on-one paraprofessional support him. However, after a few weeks of paraprofessional support, Isaiah asked to walk by himself to the general education classroom. The team agreed it was a better social fit for Isaiah to attend the class without a paraprofessional, and the other supports were sufficient for Isaiah.
Second, the team will need to consider the contextual fit of the supports outlined in the plan. Elements of contextual fit include ensuring (a) team members’ knowledge of the support plan elements and skills to implement the elements, (b) the supports align with all team member values, (c) resources to implement the plan as designed are available, (d) administration supports the plan, (e) the plan is effective and efficient, and (f) the plan is student-centered (Monzalve & Horner, 2021). If these elements of contextual fit are not continually addressed, fidelity of the plan may suffer. For example, it may not be feasible for the general education teacher to read all questions aloud to a student on a worksheet even if other students are working independently (i.e., the team did not consider the resources needed to implement the plan). In this case, if the team understands the student requires that questions be read aloud, other supports that serve the same function, such as peers or text-to-speech technology, should be considered. The team should discuss which type of support is most appropriate in relation to the general education context along with what level of training required for those supporting the student in the general education classroom. For example, when considering a choice between peers or text-to-speech technology, the team should discuss which is better suited in relation to the context and the necessary training required to access that support. Second, training may be necessary for team members, peers, and the student. For example, perhaps a student will use technology to work with a peer to create a presentation. In this example, the peer, the student, and possibly the teacher will require training on how to best utilize features of the technology support. By continually addressing contextual fit throughout the process, the team can ensure everyone’s voices are valued, the plan is socially valid for all team members, and the plan is more likely to be implemented with fidelity. Additionally, having these discussions on a regular basis could help reduce conflict on the team.
Conclusion
Despite the benefits and positive educator perceptions of inclusive education, collaboration between general and special education teachers to promote access and participation in general education settings for students with IDD remains limited. The SSPP was designed specifically to address the success of students with IDD in general education academic classrooms through a process that fosters a shared understanding about the curricular adaptations, instruction supports, and participation supports required for a student to be successful academically, behaviorally, and socially. The emerging research evidence concerning the SSPP suggests that students benefit and teachers find the process worthwhile and manageable (Thompson et al., 2022). Readers interested in additional information about the SSPP are encouraged to contact.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge James R. Thompson, PhD, for his work on supports planning and inclusive education for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities and his leadership on this grant.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Funding for this research was provided by Grant PR Award No. R324A180034 from the 
, Institute of Education Sciences, National Center for Special Education Research. The contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education; endorsement by the federal government should not be assumed.