Abstract
The purpose of this article is to share findings about Head Start teachers’ attitudes and perceived competence toward inclusion based on data gathered from 41 instructional professionals in 18 Head Start classrooms using surveys and interviews. Results showed that all of the participating teachers agreed with inclusion and identified several benefits that students and teachers could obtain from inclusion. However, teachers’ ratings on their skills and knowledge in using inclusive practices were significantly lower than their ratings on attitudes and beliefs toward inclusion. The teachers also identified several challenges (e.g., limited resources, difficulties in individualization) that they had in inclusive classrooms. Based on the results, suggestions for research and implications for practice are discussed.
Introduction
The field of education has embraced the concept of inclusion for children with disabilities. Across theories, research, and ethical perspectives in special education, there has been a strong belief that children with disabilities should be served along with their typically developing peers in inclusive school settings (e.g., Division for Early Childhood and the National Association for the Education of Young Children, 2009; Hestenes & Carroll, 2000). Subsequently, the commitment to inclusion at the federal level has grown with an emphasis on serving children with disabilities in inclusive environments in which they have opportunities to interact with typically developing peers (Schwartz & Brand, 2001). A federally funded program, Head Start is the largest provider of inclusive services for young children with and without disabilities from predominantly low-income families (Gallagher & Lambert, 2006). Since 1972, a federal mandate has required that a minimum of 10% of available slots be given to children with disabilities. According to the Head Start Program Report (U.S. Department of Health and Human Service, 2016), 12% of Head Start’s cumulative enrollment consisted of children with disabilities, who were defined as children having special plans under the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act.
Although there has been limited research on inclusion in Head Start, several research studies have focused on teachers’ attitudes about, and preparation for, inclusion in Head Start programs. For example, Nguyen and Hughes (2012) showed that the majority of the participating teachers in Head Start had positive attitudes toward inclusion and that those teachers identified social, emotional, and academic development as benefits for all children in inclusive settings. Muccio, Kidd, White, and Burns (2014) also revealed that instructional professionals in Head Start had positive attitudes toward inclusion, while the participating teachers also identified a lack of professional development as the greatest barrier to successful inclusion. Bruns and Mogharreban (2007) found that Head Start professionals had positive beliefs about inclusion but they were less certain of specialized strategies, including implementing Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), utilizing alternative forms of communication, and positioning young children with motor impairments. These studies reflect trends of research and literature reviews, which have shown that overall early childhood professionals are positive about inclusion and a variety of factors such as policies, resources, and beliefs influence the acceptance and implementation of inclusion (National Professional Development Center on Inclusion, 2009).
Numerous studies have suggested that teachers’ positive attitudes toward inclusion are an important facilitator for early childhood inclusion (e.g., Bruns & Mogharreban, 2007; Lee, Yeung, Tracey, & Barker, 2015; Mulvihill, Cotton, & Gyaben, 2004; Purcell, Horn, & Palmer, 2007). Indeed, several research studies revealed the relation between teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion and their actual interactions with students with disabilities. For example, Levins, Bornholt, and Lennon (2005) found that teachers who had positive attitudes toward students with disabilities were more likely to act positively toward those students than other teachers who expressed negative attitudes. Hsieh and Hsieh (2012) also showed that early childhood teachers who had positive experiences with children with disabilities were more likely to have positive attitudes toward inclusion. Attitudes are closely related to behaviors (Triandis, 1971) and research shows that positive attitudes and beliefs are related to teacher efficacy (Dunst & Bruder, 2014). In other words, teachers’ beliefs about inclusion and their responsibilities for students with disabilities are associated with their effectiveness in inclusive classrooms (Jordan, Schwartz, & McGhie-Richmond, 2009).
However, teachers’ positive beliefs about inclusion do not always match their abilities to implement recommended practices in inclusive settings. Many early childhood teachers believe that inclusion is recommended for children with disabilities but they are not confident of their abilities to implement inclusive practices (Baker-Ericzén, Mueggenborg, & Shea, 2009). Several research studies have shown that preservice teachers do not feel adequately prepared to serve students with disabilities in regular classroom settings (Cook, 2002; Shippen, Crites, Houchins, Ramsey, & Simon, 2005). General education teachers also believe that they are insufficiently prepared to teach students with disabilities (Friend & Bursuck, 2009). This inadequate preparation can negatively influence teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion as well as outcomes of students with disabilities (Swain, Nordness, & Leader-Janssen, 2012).
For more than 35 years, there has been much research in an effort to support early childhood inclusion. Barton and Smith (2015) stated that perhaps the most robust and consistent finding from the early childhood research is the importance and effectiveness of high-quality, early childhood inclusive environment for all young children. Many researchers have also suggested that one of the critical factors in the provision of evidence-based practices for children with disabilities is a well-prepared workforce (Stayton, 2015). However, teachers’ attitudes are still viewed as one barrier that impacts access and the feasibility of inclusive early childhood settings for children (Barton & Smith, 2015). Families also reported that teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion and their lack of training and support to work with children with disabilities were barriers to their children’s inclusion (Mulvihill et al., 2004). Therefore, despite much research evidence on early childhood inclusion, there is an ongoing need for additional research to better understand what early childhood teachers think about inclusion, how they perceive their competence about working with children with disabilities and/or challenging behaviors, and what support they need to better serve all children in their inclusive classrooms.
The current study was designed to gather information on teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion and their perceived competence about implementing inclusive practices in Head Start, the largest provider of inclusive services for young children with disabilities. Although research and public policies have supported the inclusion of young children with disabilities, and more children with disabilities have been included in regular early childhood classes, to date, little is known about inclusion of children with disabilities in Head Start. Researchers have pointed out a significant lack of empirical research on inclusion in Head Start (Muccio et al., 2014; Purcell et al., 2007). Understanding what Head Start teachers think about inclusion and how they perceive their competence, skills, and knowledge related to implementing inclusive practices is critical in finding strategies and solutions to address challenges that teachers might have and to create high-quality inclusive early childhood programs for all children in Head Start settings. The following research questions were addressed in the current study:
Method
Participants
This study was conducted in 18 classrooms across eight Head Start centers located in small suburban communities in the Northeast. All 18 classrooms operated 5 days per week, 6 classrooms operated for 2½ hours and 12 classrooms ran a full day program. The average class size was 14.6 (range = 11-18 children). All the classrooms included one lead teacher and one or two teaching assistants. Across the 18 classrooms, 41 instructional professionals (18 lead teachers and 23 teaching assistants) participated in this study. The majority of the participating teachers were female except for three male teachers. The range of the number of years the participants had been teaching was from 1 to 25 years (M = 9.63 years, SD = 6.67 years). The highest percentage of participants had obtained a bachelor’s degree with a teaching certificate (48.8%), followed by participants with teaching diplomas without bachelor’s degrees (e.g., child development associate; 26.8%), bachelor’s degrees without teaching certificates (e.g., science major; 9.8%), master’s degrees (4.9%), and other (e.g., some college, 4.9%). The majority of the participating teachers (92.7%) reported that they had completed at least one special education training, course, or seminar that specifically addressed children with disabilities.
Across the 18 classrooms, a total of 264 children were enrolled. According to the teachers’ reports on the classroom information sheets, 12 children were identified as having a diagnosed disability (e.g., chromosome disorder, autism, hearing impairment, physical disability) or a developmental delay and an IEP. There were also 12 children who had IEPs for speech and language delays. Six classrooms did not have any child with an IEP. Yet, four of the classrooms included children who were in the IEP process. One of the classrooms did have a child with an IEP but the student moved to a public preschool at the time of data collection for this study. Thus, the majority of the participating teachers had experiences in working with children with disabilities, challenging behaviors, developmental delays, and/or speech delays. Additional demographic information about the participating teachers is presented in Table 1.
Teachers’ Demographic Information.
Measures
Teacher survey
Each teacher was asked to complete a survey that Baker-Ericzén et al
(2009) developed to gather information on teachers’ attitudes and perceived competence toward inclusion. The teacher survey included 13 items organized into two subscales: (a) attitudes toward inclusion (eight items) and (b) perceived competence on inclusion (five items). Teachers rated each item on a 5-point Likert-type scale (e.g., strongly disagree = 1, disagree = 2, neutral = 3, agree = 4, strongly agree = 5). It took approximately 10 min for teachers to complete the survey. Additional questions were also included to gather teachers’ demographic information (e.g., age, gender, educational level). Total attitude scores were calculated by adding points on the eight items related to teacher attitudes for a possible 40 points. Total perceived competence scores were also calculated by adding points on the five items related to perceived competence for a possible total of 25 points. Cronbach’s alpha for this survey suggested high internal consistency: prescores (α = .81) and postscores (α = .82) for the Attitude subscales and prescores (α = .88) and postscores (α = .89) for the Perceived Competence subscale (Baker-Ericzén et al., 2009). Baker-Ericzén and colleagues also reported that the two-factor structure of the questionnaire (attitudes and perceived competence) was confirmed by the use of principal components analysis. The attitude item coefficients ranged from .608 to .736 and the perceived competence item coefficients ranged from .695 to .843.
Teacher interview
In addition to the teacher surveys, an individual interview was conducted with each teacher to further investigate teachers’ perceptions about inclusion. Teachers were asked the following two questions: To what extent does your philosophy agree or disagree with the current practice of serving children with disabilities alongside their typically developing peers? and What do you believe are the challenges and benefits of inclusion to you as a teacher to serve children with and without disabilities in inclusive classrooms? All teachers’ responses were audio-recorded and then the recorded responses were transcribed by a graduate research assistant who was majoring in school psychology.
Procedures
Using email, the researcher briefly explained the study to directors in 11 Head Start programs. The directors of eight programs agreed to help recruit participants from their centers. The directors emailed all classroom teachers in their centers to ask if they would be interested in this study. Forty-one teachers responded positively to their director’s email. Then, the researcher emailed the teachers who were interested in the study to set up a meeting with each of them. At the meeting, the researcher explained the study to the teachers and provided a research packet that included a copy of the teacher survey and consent form. Then, another meeting was scheduled to pick up signed consent forms and completed surveys, and to interview the teachers. All 41 teachers who filled out the surveys also agreed to participate in individual interviews. Interviews were conducted individually with each teacher in a quiet place at the center and each interview took approximately 10 to 15 min. All participating teachers were provided with a US$10.00 gift certificate to show appreciation for their time and participation. The researcher also provided two children’s books about disabilities per classroom so the teachers could read them with their students.
Data Analysis
Data analyses on the teacher surveys were conducted using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) version 24.0. To ensure participants’ confidentiality, each survey was given a numeric code when the data were entered into SPSS. A research assistant double-checked data entry for accuracy. The data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, t test, correlation, and one-way ANOVA to examine relations among teachers’ attitudes and perceived competences toward inclusion and other teacher variables such as teachers’ positions (lead teacher or teaching assistant), years of overall teaching experience, level of education, the number of special education–related training or courses and other teacher demographics (e.g., age, gender, ethnicity).
Teachers’ responses to the interview questions were transcribed into Word files by a research assistant. The responses were read and reread several times to determine themes, following content analysis procedures described by Johnson and LaMontagne (1993). Although two interview questions were asked, it appeared that teachers’ responses to the two questions were mixed. For example, some teachers described benefits and challenges when they responded to the first question (To what extent do you agree or disagree with inclusion?) and some teachers explained why they agreed with inclusion when they responded to the second question (What are the benefits and challenges of inclusion?). Therefore, the researcher decided to combine all responses to the two interview questions. For data analyses, the author’s colleague, who received a PhD in early childhood special education and had experience using the content analysis procedure over the previous 10 years, helped with analyzing the interview data.
Teachers’ answers were bracketed and categorized according to major themes. Mutually exclusive categories were developed and then definitions were developed for each category. Once the categories and definitions were developed, the researcher and her colleague independently sorted all responses and then compared their sorting. When there were disagreements, they discussed the responses and categories to resolve differences and reach consensus. Following this process, the categories and definitions were refined and all data were coded. Once the researcher was confident with the definitions and all data were coded, the researcher and her colleague reread all responses for each category and ensured that all responses were placed in the appropriate categories. Interrater agreement was calculated on the sorting, using an exact agreement method. A doctoral student who was majoring in early childhood education and blinded to this study, sorted 30% of the responses that were randomly selected from each category. The coder was asked to sort the comments into the appropriate categories. Reliability was calculated using the following formula: the number of agreements divided by agreements plus disagreements and multiplied by 100. Mean percentage of interrater agreement averaged 91.1%.
Results
Teachers’ Attitude and Perceived Competence Toward Inclusion
As shown in Table 2, the mean scores on attitude toward inclusion (survey items from 1-8) showed that overall the participating teachers had positive attitudes toward inclusion. However, the mean scores on perceived competence about inclusion were slightly below the scale of 4 (agree). A paired-samples t test was used to compare the mean levels of the teachers’ attitudes and their perceived competence toward inclusion. Results showed that the mean ratings for attitude (M = 4.32, SD = 0.44) were significantly greater than the mean ratings for competence (M = 3.83, SD = 0.54), t(40) = 5.89, p < .01. In addition, a Pearson correlation was conducted to examine the relationship between teachers’ attitudes and perceived competence toward inclusion. Results revealed a significant correlation between teachers’ attitudes and their perceived competence toward inclusion, r = .46, n = 41, p < .01.
Teachers’ Attitudes and Competence Toward Inclusion.
To examine relationships among teacher variables (e.g., education level, number of special education training) and their attitudes and perceived competence toward inclusion, an ANOVA test and correlations were used. A Spearman correlation revealed a significant relationship between the teachers’ perceived competence and the number of special education trainings, r = .40, n = 41, p < .05 while there were no relationships between teachers’ attitude and the number of special education trainings. Other teacher variables such as their position (lead teachers or teaching assistants), age, ethnicity, number of years in teaching, and education levels were not related to their attitudes or perceived competence about inclusion.
Teachers’ Perceptions About Benefits and Challenges of Inclusion
Across the 41 teachers, 151 responses were coded using content analysis procedures. Major themes that emerged from data analyses were sorted into four categories: general concept of inclusion, benefits for children, benefits for teachers, and challenges. Detailed information on the categories, definitions, and percentages of responses is presented in Table 3.
Categories and Definitions of Teachers’ Responses to Interview Questions.
General concept of inclusion
Approximately one fourth of responses (23%) fell into this category. In responses to the two interview questions, many teachers stated that they agreed with and/or liked inclusion and then added more explanations about why they agreed with or liked inclusion. These responses were categorized into the theme, general concept of inclusion, and then were sorted into two subcategories: importance and individualized support. The first subcategory, importance, indicated that the teachers considered inclusion an important practice in which children with disabilities should be together with their typically developing peers (e.g., I do believe it is very important to include all children with disabilities and make it work and make it happen and I think that they deserve just as fair of a chance, so putting them in with other children is definitely a great idea.). The second subcategory, individualized support, included responses that focused on the idea of providing individualized support (e.g., I believe it is very important to include all children with disabilities and make accommodations needed in the classroom to help them succeed. I do totally agree.).
Benefits for children
The participating teachers shared their ideas about the benefits of inclusion. Although the interview question was asking about the benefits for teachers, many teachers described benefits for both children and teachers. Those responses were divided into benefits for children and benefits for teachers. Approximately 34.5% of responses fell into the category of benefits for children, while 10% of responses were related to benefits for teachers. The category of benefits for children, included three subcategories: acceptance, learning outcomes, and social interactions. Of these three subcategories, the most frequently mentioned comments (17.2%) fell into acceptance. Half of the teachers (n = 20) stated that increased acceptance and learning about diversity were the benefits that children could obtain from their participation in inclusive classrooms (e.g., The benefits are that kids grow up with the sense that all people are different and all people are alike. The very basis of inclusion is to say we’re all alike and we’re all different and it doesn’t matter because we all have different abilities.). The teachers also identified learning outcomes (e.g., I think it definitely helps children with disabilities learn more, even if they are not really focused or paying attention, they still kind of know what’s going on in the classroom. You can kind of see that eventually they will start to do what the other kids are doing or they will start to pick up on things.), and social interactions (e.g., I think it is a great benefit for the kids to have peers with disabilities with us for learning how we should communicate with them and what we should do to help them.) as benefits for children in inclusive classrooms.
Benefits for teachers
Responses related to benefits for teachers were sorted into the two subcategories: increased knowledge and observing children’s progress. Approximately one fourth of the teachers (n = 10) reported that inclusion was beneficial for them to increase their knowledge in supporting children with disabilities (e.g., It certainly, as a teacher, makes you stretch more and think more about adaptations for everybody and that everybody is a different kind of learner so the more exposure you have to kids who do not learn typically, the more you are forced to think creatively about all kinds of learners.). Several teachers mentioned that as a teacher, it was rewarding to observe progress that children with disabilities had made (e.g., The benefits for me are that I’ve seen improvements in some of the kids that we’ve been tracking and making behavioral plans for. I think it is just so rewarding because you can really see how much they progress. It is great to see your work make a change.).
Challenges
Approximately 32% of the total comments were coded as challenges that teachers had in inclusive classrooms. The comments were sorted into four subcategories: limited resources, limited knowledge in individualization, severity of disability and behavioral issues, and parent education. Almost half of the teachers identified limited resources as a challenge to inclusion. These teachers stated that they had limited resources such as limited materials, no one-on-one teaching staff (e.g., The challenges I think are when you have a certain curriculum that the teacher has to follow and if there is not a paraprofessional assigned to help the children with disabilities, there could be problems both for the teacher and for the students, all the students, typical and not typical.), and lack of professional development (e.g., A big one is that I think teachers need more training and resources to help those children who have the specific needs and be able to provide them with everything that they need along with all the other children.). Of the 24 teachers who identified limited resources as a challenge to inclusion, 10 teachers expressed that the lack of paraprofessionals was a challenge.
In addition, 12 teachers identified limited knowledge in individualization as a challenge (e.g., I definitely think that the challenges are meeting the needs [of children with disabilities] and figuring out what that child actually needs, and making it work, and trying different things until it works. It is always a challenge when you get a child with a disability.). Ten teachers stated that it was a challenge to work with children with severe disabilities (e.g., The challenges are that some of the kids have severe disabilities. I had a kid last year with such severe disabilities that we actually ended up not being able to serve him and he had to go somewhere else.) and/or children with challenging behaviors (e.g., For the most part I think they should be with their typically developing peers but there are some instances when a child with a disability becomes the focus of the entire classroom and the rest of the children have to wait in the wayside while these difficulties are addressed). Finally, one teacher mentioned parent education was a challenge (e.g., Educating parents, even other parents, is really important, too.).
Discussion
Results of this study indicated that, overall, the participating teachers in Head Start had positive attitudes toward inclusion of children with disabilities and they believed that inclusion was beneficial for children as well as teachers. As suggested in previous studies, findings of this study have confirmed that inclusion benefits children with and without disabilities, particularly with respect to their social development (Barton & Smith, 2014; National Professional Development Center on Inclusion, 2009; Odom, Buysse, & Soukakou, 2011), including positive peer relationships (Buysse, Goldman, & Skinner, 2002; Guralnick, Conner, Hammond, Gottman, & Kinnish, 1996) and increased acceptance of peers with disabilities (Odom, Zercher, Li, Marquart, & Sandall, 2006; Okagaki, Diamond, Kontos, & Hestenes, 1998). The participating teachers also identified academic benefits of inclusion. This result is consistent with results of previous studies (e.g., Nguyen & Hughes, 2012; Rafferty, Piscitelli, & Boettcher, 2003) that showed learning outcomes of children with disabilities in inclusive settings. In addition, some of the teachers reported that inclusion was beneficial for them to learn strategies for supporting children with disabilities and that it was rewarding for them to observe the progress that children with disabilities had made.
Despite the positive attitudes of teachers toward inclusion and their reports on the benefits of inclusion, the participating teachers were less confident of their skills and knowledge in working with children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. This result is in line with results in a previous study (Bruns & Mogharreban, 2007) that indicated that Head Start teachers had positive attitudes toward inclusion but they had different views on their understanding of more specialized practices targeted for children with disabilities in inclusive settings. Many of the participating teachers in the current study expressed their concerns and challenges such as limited resources, lack of knowledge in providing individualized support, and difficulties working with children with severe disabilities and behavioral issues. Two of the teachers mentioned that one of their students with disabilities moved to a public preschool that provided special education services. Ten teachers stated that they would need a paraprofessional who could directly work with children with disabilities. These results show that the lack of knowledge and limited resources may further portend inappropriate educational opportunities for children with disabilities in inclusive settings. In fact, Cook (2001) showed that children with severe disabilities were overrepresented in teachers’ indifference nomination. Many teachers reported that they did not know how to provide instruction that could meet the unique needs of students with severe disabilities. Indeed, their observation data revealed that the teachers’ interactions were infrequent, brief, and perfunctory with those students who were in the indifference category. More recently, data show high rates of expulsion and suspension in early childhood programs (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, U.S. Department of Education, 2016). According to their statement, early childhood teachers report that coping with challenging behavior is their most pressing training need. Thus, it is imperative for early childhood teachers to learn effective strategies to meet the needs of children with severe disabilities and/or challenging behaviors and to address any challenges that those students display in inclusive classrooms.
The current study also shows that teachers’ perceived competence was significantly related to the number of special education trainings that they received. These findings are consistent with the previous studies showing that teachers who received disability-specific training are more comfortable with serving children with disabilities than are those who have not (e.g., Baker-Ericzén et al., 2009; Fukkink & Lont, 2007). Many of the participating teachers in the current study identified their need for more professional development and training activities in the area of specialized interventions and strategies for children with disabilities. This result confirms the importance of ongoing teacher training and adequate resources for successful inclusion programs. The quality of teacher practices in inclusive classrooms is closely related to their professional development (Lawrence, Smith, & Banerjee, 2016). Research shows that professional development increases teachers’ abilities to use inclusive practices (Artman-Meeker & Hemmeter, 2013; Bruns & Mogharreban, 2007; Muccio et al., 2014).
Interestingly, in the current study, the participating teachers’ ideas about individualization emerged across different categories of the interview data. For example, some teachers stressed the importance of providing individualized curricula and making accommodations for children with disabilities when they described their general ideas about inclusion. Several teachers stated that inclusion was beneficial for them to increase their knowledge in providing individualized support while limited knowledge in providing individualized support was also identified as a challenge in inclusive classrooms. These results show that teachers consider providing individualized support as an essential component of a quality inclusive program and believe that it is important for teachers to learn effective strategies to meet the needs of each child with a disability. There is common agreement that specialized instruction focusing on the individualized needs of children in inclusive settings is important (Barton & Smith, 2014; National Professional Development Center on Inclusion, 2009). Although young children with disabilities benefit from inclusion, simply enrolling them in inclusive classrooms might be insufficient to address their learning needs (Lawrence et al., 2016). Therefore, resources for professional development, ongoing coaching and collaboration, and time for communication and planning are necessary to ensure that programs and program personnel are ready for children with a range of characteristics and needs (Odom et al., 2011).
Limitations
Several limitations must be considered when evaluating the findings from the current study. First, this study was based on responses from a small number of teachers in a specific geographic region so the findings have limited generality to other early childhood classrooms. This small sample size might affect data analyses. For example, there have been a few research studies indicating that lead teachers were more likely than teaching assistants to have positive attitudes toward inclusion of children with disabilities (e.g., Hsieh & Hsieh, 2012). However, in this study, no significant differences were found between lead teachers and teaching assistants. Therefore, future research that includes a larger sample size in different locations is needed.
Although this study showed the relation between special education courses/training and teachers’ perceived competences about inclusion, many of the teacher variables (e.g., education level, teacher’s position) were neither related to teachers’ attitudes nor perceived competences toward inclusion. Researchers have noted that the exact factors that might be influencing teachers’ beliefs and practices have been hard to decipher (Mitchell & Hegde, 2007). Thus, additional research is needed to identify variables that are most likely to positively impact teachers’ attitude and competence toward inclusion.
In addition, this study was solely based on teachers’ responses to the surveys and interview questions. Thus, observations of Head Start classrooms would provide more information about the application of inclusion beliefs and skills that teachers hold in daily classroom activities and routines. Future studies need to examine teachers’ attitudes toward and interactions with children with disabilities through observations, rather than to focus on teachers’ stated attitudes toward the general concept of inclusion. Also, for the survey used in this study, Baker-Ericzén et al. (2009) provided the validity and reliability data but the intercorrelation among the subscales (attitudes and perceived competence) was not high (<.08). Thus, this survey needs to be field tested by additional research studies.
Implications for Practice
As clearly shown in this study, participation in specialized trainings is critical for teachers to increase their knowledge and skills in implementing effective inclusive practices. In the current study, the participating teachers described a high-quality inclusion as providing individualized support and making adaptations of instructions to meet the individual needs of children with disabilities. Therefore, providing more materials and support (e.g., resources, paraprofessionals, professional development) is critical in promoting successful inclusion in Head start settings. However, “one shot” professional development opportunities might not be very helpful for teachers to address the specialized needs of young children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms (Bruns & Mogharreban, 2007). They would need follow-up activities after in-service training and workshops. There is growing evidence related to the effects of coaching and training on high-quality inclusion practices (e.g., Artman-Meeker & Hemmeter, 2013; Brown, Gatmaitan, & Harjusola-Webb, 2014). Thus, states’ professional development systems should offer training and coaching designed to help teachers use evidence-based practices that promote learning in children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms, including Head Start settings (Lawrence et al., 2016).
For more than three decades, research support for early childhood inclusion has grown. Numerous research studies have shown robust and consistent findings about the importance and effectiveness of high-quality inclusive early childhood education for young children with disabilities (e.g., Boyd, Odom, Humphreys, & Sam, 2010; Lawrence et al., 2016). However, several recent studies have indicated that the early childhood field has made insubstantial progress regarding inclusive placements (Barton & Smith, 2015; Odom et al., 2011). These researchers showed that there has been only 5.7% of increase in the number of children (aged 3 to 5 years old) in regular early childhood settings when comparing data from 1985 and 2012. In fact, several classrooms in the current study did not include any children with disabilities. Most of the classrooms served a smaller percentage of children with disabilities than the national median of 12% (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2016). Being in the same classroom with typically developing peers is one meaningful way to ensure that children with disabilities are receiving some of the same instruction and interactions as typically developing peers, even though materials must be adapted or the curriculum altered to meet individual needs of young children with disabilities (Purcell et al., 2007).
Also, despite the substantial research evidence related to the importance of high-quality early childhood inclusion, several researchers have reported a lack of progress in preschool inclusion. For example, Barton and Smith (2015) identified challenges such as lack of specialized training, lack of communication and collaboration, beliefs about typical settings and approaches to instruction and curriculum based on an online survey from a national sample of administrators. These results are in line with the findings of the current study, which shows that the same challenges (e.g., attitudes, teacher preparation, support, and resources) still exist after more than three decades in the field of early childhood inclusion. Thus, continued research on improving the current practices of inclusion is imperative to support teachers’ use of recommended practice (Division for Early Childhood, 2014) and evidence-based practices so that they feel competent about working with children with disabilities in inclusive classrooms. Our field has moved beyond negative attitudes toward inclusion and all early childhood professionals must be competent to promote the success of all children in inclusive classrooms (Dunst & Bruder, 2014).
Footnotes
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: This study was supported by the College of Education Faculty Research Fellowship at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.