Articles

A new third-grader arrives at your school. He is blind. He is autistic. He is developmentally delayed. How does your school deal with the special needs of this child?

As a child I knew my grandfather was different. Grandpapa had been a sharecropper in southern Indiana. He had worked most of his adult life raising corn and pigs. His hands were big and callused. He stooped when he walked and the skin on his neck and face was scarred. His earlobes were long, stretched and fused down low at the back of his jawbone. His eyes seemed to be a bit elongated in their sockets. He was different because he looked different. You see, when he was a young child he had played with matches and caught his clothes on fire. His facial disfigurement was the price he paid for the bad judgment of a toddler.

In third grade, Julia Horsman’s entire science project consisted of being herded outside with the other kids with disabilities and rolling soda cans down a ramp.

As a kid, I remember listening wide-eyed to my grandmother tell me about the “Dummy Room.” The Dummy Room was one of her first assignments as a young teacher in small-town Iowa in the 1930s. Like other Dummy Rooms across the country, it was the dumping ground for the school district’s hard cases.

During the fourth week of school, the form came home, stuffed into my daughter’s backpack: Your student scored a XX on his/her DIBELS literacy test, administered this Fall/Summer. Based on this score, your child will be placed in Open Court Level XYZ [with] TEACHER A...

Jackie Brown prided herself on teaching her students about disabilities. But could she confront her own feelings about her mother and polio?

Students with learning disabilities create a documentary film to share their wisdom.

In fiction, children with disabilities are often still segregated, labeled, lonely and lost. These titles will help bring your school’s library into the age of inclusion.

A child's ADHD diagnosis raises one parent's concerns about the stereotypes that too often surround the disorder.

Innovative social inclusion programs are reducing the social isolation of students with disabilities, ending harassment and stereotyping, and improving life opportunities.