All Together Now: Inclusion in Early Childhood Classrooms

When it’s clean up time in the three to five-year-old classroom at the Discovery Learning Center in St. Petersburg, FL, the kids chant the Clean Up Song as they hurry around the room putting toys away and gathering their backpacks. Some students help one child who uses a wheelchair to pick up toys, get into the chair, and collect his belongings.

Inclusive classrooms like this one, with a mix of students with and without disabilities, help kids learn to constantly evaluate the environment, including figuring out what the other kids need. The benefits don’t stop there, which is why more and more schools are including students with disabilities in general education classrooms, says Bob Pianta, Dean at the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. But just because a classroom has students with disabilities on the roster, doesn’t mean that it’s inclusive.

Enrolling students with disabilities is just the start. Having an inclusive classroom “is like having a culturally or racially diverse classroom,” says John Nimmo, associate professor and executive director of the University of New Hampshire Child Study and Development Center. “It doesn’t guarantee that kids are coming out of that experience with a better awareness and less biased attitude…teachers have to facilitate the process of understanding between kids.” In inclusion, children with different ability levels are part of the community and their needs are integrated into the entire program.