phasis is on "full inclusion," interpreted to mean that all children with disabilities belong in the regular class with their chronological age peers (Britton, 1994, p. B10).
The terms "least restrictive environment," "mainstream," and "full inclusion" have been interpreted differently by various commentators and advocacy groups, in the service of specific objectives for the appropriate scope and limit of education for students with special needs. In virtually all cases, the relevant student population is of elementary and secondary-school age in the public school systems.
The term "least restrictive environment" (IRE) in the 1970s appears to have been interpreted to mean that special-education students could be optimally educated by teachers specially trained and in environments specifically designed to meet special physical and mental needs (Wilgoren, 1994). That is, in a setting comprising only special-needs students, there would be less need than in the regular classroom to restrict the behavior of the student in class to accommodate the educational needs of the regular student population. Accordingly, such students were segregated from standard elementary and secondary school populations (Stein, 1994; Smelter, Rasch & Yudewitz, 1994). Students educated in this manner were sometimes said to be in
"pullout programs" (Haas, 1993, p. 34).
The term "mainstreaming" evolved in the 1980s to refer to the practice of "placing students with mild to moderate disabilities in regular classrooms" (Wilgoren, 1994, p. A29). According to The Washington Post, some 95 percent of the 5.17 million disabled American students, with 35.7 percent assigned to regular classes 80 percent of the time, 34.4 percent in resource rooms, and 23.9 percent in separate classes (1994). According to Bordner and Berkley (1992), mainstreamed educational environments provide opportunities for disabled children to interact positively with regular-track ch...