Mainstreaming Students with Mild Handicaps: Academic and Social Outcomes

This paper reviews research on the effects of placing students with mild academic handicaps in full-time special education classes, part-time regular classes with resource support, and full-time regular classes. It also reviews research on the effects of programs designed to improve the achievement, social-emotional adjustment, and social acceptance of academically handicapped students by their nonhandicapped classmates. Methodologically adequate studies of placements of academically handicapped students indicate few consistent benefits of full-time special education on any important outcomes. The research favors placement in regular classes using individualized instruction or supplemented by well-designed resource programs for the achievement, self-esteem, behavior, and emotional adjustment of academically handicapped students. Experimental research indicates that cooperative learning and individualized instruction programs can improve the self-perceptions and behavior of mainstreamed academically handicapped students and acceptance by their nonhandicapped classmates.