A comparison of school readiness for preschool children with and without disabilities in inclusive environments.

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study compared school readiness skill development for children with and without identified special needs in reverse inclusive and inclusive preschool programs. The reverse inclusive programs enrollment consisted of a minimum of 50% of the students with an identified special need, while the inclusive programs were more representative of society and had less than 11% of the children with an identified special need. A pre-post test design was implemented using the Brigance Screen over the period of one academic school year. There was a program difference between the two models examined. The total pre-post scores on the Brigance Screen for children with identified special needs were identified as showing a significant difference in favor of the reverse inclusive environments. These significant findings for total pre-post test gains were not found for the typically developing children in the same program model, or for either group of children in the inclusive programs. Further analysis of the disaggregated skills of the three domains of communication, cognition, and motor skills provided mixed results for typical children enrolled in the reverse inclusive programs. They were identified as showing significant differences with the communication and motor skill domains compared to the children enrolled in the inclusive program models. Although the children in the reverse inclusive programs displayed higher post-test scores, all children in both program models demonstrated positive growth.
An examination of how teacher and classrooms characteristics contributed to the overall performance of the children was also examined. The only significant finding that contributed to the overall pre-post test analysis was teacher experience. Teachers working in reverse inclusive programs were found to have more years experience educating children, which was a contributing factor for the overall readiness skill gains for children in their programs.