Suchergebnisse

Transition of students with severe handicaps from school to community life has become a principle concern of parents, advocates, and professionals. The failure of students with disabilities to access appropriate vocational and residential services following school has highlighted the need for comprehensive transition planning at both an individual and systems level. Through interviews with state administrators of educational, vocational, and residential services, this study attempted to define the scope of the postschool service needs of individuals exiting public school programs on a national level. The results of the survey are discussed in terms of the implications for state agencies in effectively planning the transition of students with severe handicaps from school to postschool services.

At a time when the transition from school to work and community life for students with handicaps has become a major national concern, the need for information to help guide transition planning is acute. Parents of youth with handicaps are an important and frequently overlooked data source in transition planning. The present study surveyed parents of high school students with severe handicaps throughout Oregon. Parents were asked to project the service needs of their son/daughter at graduation, 5 years after graduation, and 10 years after graduation. They were also asked to rank the features of adult service programs that they desire for their children, and to describe the source of their own information about post-school opportunities and services for their sons and daughters. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for planning and developing appropriate post-school services for students with severe handicaps.

It is now the responsibility of educators to provide for the education of severely handicapped students in what has been referred to as "the least restrictive educational environment." This paper discusses least restrictive educational environments in relation to segregation versus integration, interactions with nonhandicapped age peers, the ratio between handicapped and nonhandicapped students, chronologically age-appropriate educational environments, architectural barriers and prosthetized environments, "normal" organization of the school day, equal access to school facilities and resources, transportation, and ancillary services. The fundamental premise offered here is that educational service delivery models for severely handicapped students must closely approximate the best educational service delivery models used for nonhandicapped students.

It is now the responsibility of educators to provide for the education of severely handicapped students in what has been referred to as "the least restrictive educational environment." This paper discusses least restrictive educational environments in relation to segregation versus integration, interactions with nonhandicapped age peers, the ratio between handicapped and nonhandicapped students, chronologically age-appropriate educational environments, architectural barriers and prosthetized environments, "normal" organization of the school day, equal access to school facilities and resources, transportation, and ancillary services. The fundamental premise offered here is that educational service delivery models for severely handicapped students must closely approximate the best educational service delivery models used for nonhandicapped students.

If severely handicapped people are to function as independently and productively as possible in a variety of least restrictive postschool community environments, they must have comprehensive and longitudinal interactions with nonhandicapped persons during the educational years, In this paper some arguments in favor of interaction with nonhandicapped persons and some of the arguments in favor of the segregation of severely handicapped persons are delineated and briefly discussed in a point/counterpoint format. The authors strongly support comprehensive and longitudinal interactions between severely handicapped and nonhandicapped persons.

This paper responds to Brown et al. (1984), who propose an extended training program involving work without pay in integrated settings for adults with severe intellectual handicaps. While agreeing about the capability of persons with disabilities, the importance of integration, and the failings of typical services, we believe that their extended training proposal represents an unnecessary retreat from values that have guided development of exemplary school and community services for persons with severe handicaps. As an extended outcome of services, the proposed program needlessly sacrifices wages and other employment benefits, distorts the benefits of integration by looking only at the workplace, and tolerates unequal treatment of citizens with severe handicaps. Relying on unpaid work as a strategy for time-limited employment preparation creates the risk of overuse and of perpetual readiness programming, suggesting that professional effort could be better spent in development of supported employment opportunities. Current federally supported employment initiatives provide a framework for combining wages and integration and offer support for local program development.