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Inclusive education in the United States has been a focus of government policy for the past 30 years. The underlying goals of the inclusive education movement are to provide the most efficient and effective education in the least restrictive environment for students with disabilities. In response to federal and state mandates, students with disabilities increasingly are being educated in more inclusive settings. One way to measure the success of inclusion is to examine graduation rates for students with disabilities. Although accountability related to state curriculum standards and standardized test scores is important, graduation rates may be the critical factor in deciding whether current educational policy is resulting in successful outcomes for students. To determine the effects of inclusion, a statewide study was conducted to look for trends in inclusion and corresponding graduation rates for students with mild disabilities. The researchers examined the records of 67,749 students with mild disabilities in Georgia during a six-year period to determine the amount of time spent in general education classrooms and the graduation rates for each year’s cohort of students. Results indicated a 62% increase in the percentage rate in inclusion for students with mild disabilities, while graduation rates for students with mild disabilities remained stable (+0.4%) at less than 30% during that same period. This chapter will describe the results of this study, discuss barriers to graduation, and present inclusive practices that support students with mild disabilities.

In the United States, students with disabilities have moved from learning in a segregated environment to being included in the general education classroom. Legislative mandates have encouraged this shift to occur in public schools in order to equal the playing field for students with disabilities. Both general and special education students with learning disabilities (LD) have been affected from inclusion. This chapter describes the legal, historical, psychological, and instructional concepts shaping the way students with LD are educated today.

Special education in the USA is, in most respects, a 20th century phenomenon and is now governed primarily by federal legislation first enacted in 1975. The federal law in its most recent reauthorization (2004) continues to require a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for all students with disabilities, a full continuum of alternative placements (CAP) ranging from residential or hospital care to inclusion in general education, an individual education plan or program (IEP) for each student identified as needing special education, and placement in the least restrictive environment (LRE) that is thought best for implementing the IEP. Parents must be involved in the special education process. Approximately 14 percent of public school students were identified for special education in 2004–2005, but the number and percentage of students identified in most high-incidence categories as needing special education have declined in recent years (the total for all categories was about 8.5 percent of public school students in 2010). A variety of evidence-based interventions can be used to address the wide range of instructional and behavioral needs of students with disabilities and their families, including transition to further education or work, family services, and teacher education. Special education in the USA may find new sources of support and thrive or may become less common or be abandoned entirely due to criticism and withdrawal of support for social welfare programs of government.

Legislative guidance stipulates that people with a learning disability have the right to receive local provision of personalised support within the least restrictive environment. On these bases there is a growing emphasis on the requirement for local authorities to develop appropriate services for people who are currently in a hospital setting. The purpose of this paper is to examine the literature addressing factors influencing the provision of effective community-based forensic services.

The six articles were analysed separately using the evaluation tool – Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, Purpose. The six articles used divergent sample groups and employed both qualitative and quantitative methods to collate data. The articles shared a purpose of examining forensic community service provision with an aim to improve services.

There were three themes that emerged consistently across the literature these included: balancing risk management vs individual autonomy; multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working; service improvement. There is a growing emphasis on the need to replace long-term hospital placements with specialist, community provision, employing least restrictive methods and positive responses to crisis situations. In this climate, it is crucial that multi-disciplinary agencies from local authority, health and the charitable and private sector continue to work collaboratively on the integration of service provision in order to bring about the development of effective and responsive community services.

Research limited to peer reviewed and published research papers focusing on the subject of community forensic services with publications specifically made within the time frame of the Transforming Care Agenda.

This paper looks to examine the practical solutions to providing effective community forensic services for a person with an intellectual disability and makes recommendations for research into improving service specific training for support staff.

Following the Winterbourne View Hospital scandal (BBC One, 2011) instigations were made to make legislative change under the Transforming Care Agenda. Despite a renewed conviction in the rights of people to be a part of their local community without segregation or discrimination, professionals in the field continue to report a failure to reduce numbers of people in long stay hospitals and secure settings. With commissioning under pressure to make these intentions a reality it is a really good time to reflect on practice and evaluate service models to establish the factors that bring about positive outcomes for individuals enabling inclusion within community settings.

This review will focus on the literature evidencing positive intervention and outcome focussed methods of supporting people with a forensic history in the community. This is an entirely original piece of work analysing peer reviewed and published research.

Inclusion is a concept that has been around for years and is implemented in our schools. Some schools do it well and others are still working on it. Inclusion is meant to include students with disabilities in the general education classroom and curriculum. This chapter will briefly discuss special education as well as inclusion. Inclusion will be defined, and benefits and also myths of inclusion will be discussed. In addition, research that supports inclusion will be described. This chapter lays the foundation for the other chapters in this volume that will discuss inclusion and students with specific types of disabilities.

Supermaxes across the United States detain thousands in long-term solitary confinement, under conditions of extreme sensory deprivation. Almost every state built a supermax between the late 1980s and the late 1990s. This chapter examines the role of federal prisoners’ rights litigation in the 1960s and 1970s in shaping the prisons, especially supermaxes, built in the 1980s and 1990s in the United States. This chapter uses a systematic analysis of federal court case law, as well as archival research and oral history interviews with key informants, including lawyers, experts, and correctional administrators, to explore the relationship between federal court litigation and prison building and designing. This chapter argues that federal conditions of confinement litigation in the 1960s and 1970s (1) had a direct role in shaping the supermax institutions built in the subsequent decades and (2) contributed to the resistance of these institutions to constitutional challenges. The history of litigation around supermaxes is an important and as-yet-unexplored aspect of the development of Eighth Amendment jurisprudence in the United States over the last half century.

In a world of ever-changing educational trends, it is essential for educators to provide a continuum of services to meet the needs of all students. Therefore, employing an inclusive structure or environment is imperative to the implementation of Special Education laws, according to Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Every Student Succeeds Act. As stipulated in law, all students should be educated in the least restrictive environment with their typically developing peers. This chapter focuses on the role of the special education professional as it specifically relates to the mainstream or inclusion setting. Topics covered in this chapter include an overview of inclusion, the inclusion model, an in-class support model, a content mastery model, and characteristics of an effective special educator, understanding disabilities, assessing and referring to appropriate supports, collecting data for individualized education program meetings, differentiated instruction, and strategies for inclusion. The goal of the chapter is to provide the overall view of inclusion in today’s classrooms in relation to the role of the special education teacher.

Since the passage of P.L. 94–142, the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, on November 29, 1975, mandating that handicapped students be educated in the least restrictive environments possible, there has been an increasing demand for information related to the education of the handicapped. A common observation of teachers and administrators is that tedious hours of paperwork and conferences are required to plan individualized programs and meet governmental mandates.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (Declaration of Independence, 1776)

A case study approach to highlight the use of cognitive neurological rehabilitation in the therapeutic management of two service users who have a diagnosis of learning disability and who have exhibited the extremes of aggressive and challenging behaviour. The purpose of this paper is to explore the remarkable progress made by two service users for whom services seemed to be at a loss as to how to meet all but there basic needs. Their journeys from hopelessness to optimism and recovery are both attributable to the cognitive neurological rehabilitation model and how staff and service users worked together to gradually regain control.

A case study approach highlighting the value of training, team working and a therapeutic model and the impact this has made on service users who, in the past, where labelled as highly disruptive and potentially untreatable.

That the cognitive neurological approach is effective in managing service users who have certain cognitive deficits in a structured and supportive way that allows positive progress towards recovery.

A very practical intervention that can be taught and supported. An intervention that appears to achieve excellent clinical results.

Very original and effective approach to care and treatment of service users with diagnosis of learning disability living in conditions requiring security.