the integration of students with mild academic handicaps in regular classrooms

The integration of students with mild academic handicaps

in regular classrooms Robert E. Slavin and Nancy A. Madden

One of the most important developments in special as well as regular education over the past fifteen years has been the movement toward integration of students with mild handicaps in regular classrooms. In the United States, the requirement that handicapped students be placed in the 'least restrictive environment' appropriate to their needs was established as part of Public Law 94-I42 in I975, and similar policies have been established in most Western European countries (Dab1 et al., I983; Hegarty et al., I98I; Labr6g~re, I984; National Swedish Board of Education, I98O; Schindele, I977). These policies generally go under the term 'mainstreaming' in North America and 'integration' elsewhere.

Integration, or mainstreaming, usually refers to two related but distinct practices. One is the education of handicapped students in regular school buildings, with interaction between handicapped and non-handicapped students largely restricted to lunch, recess, physical education, and so on. This form of integration is now the typical placement for mentally retarded students in most parts of

Robert E. Slavin (United States). Principal Research Scientist and Director of the Effective Elementary Schools Program at the Center for Effective Elementary and Middle Schools at Johns Hopkins University. He has written many books and articles on co-operative learning, classroom organization, educational psychology, race relations and mainstreaming, including Cooperative Learning (Longman, z983) and Educational Psychology (Prentice-Hall, x986 ).

Nancy A. Madden (United States). Research scientist at the same centre. She has carried out extensive research on effective instructional methods for regular classes containing academically handicapped students, and has written many articles on this and other topics.

Prospects, Vol. XVI, No. 4, I956

444 Robert E. Slavin and Nancy A. Madden

the world, and is no longer particularly controversial. The Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries generally maintain separate schools for the mentaUy retarded (Magne, I976), but even there, out-of-class and out-of-school co-operative social activities among retarded and non-handicapped students are emphasized (Lubovsky, 1981).

The other important form of integration of handicapped pupils involves their placement in regular classrooms for part or all of their school day. While this practice is not currently controversial when it involves students with physical disabilities, such as orthopaedic handicaps or correctable hearing or visual disabilities, it is much more controversial and problematic when the students being integrated are learning disabled, retarded or emotionally disturbed. In the United States in 1982 , 80 per cent of students identified as learning disabled, 3o per cent of mentally retarded, and 42 per cent of emotionally disturbed students primarily attended regular classes (National Center for Educational Statistics, 1985). Students with mild academic handicaps are extensively integrated in Italy (Pas- ternak, 1979; Vislie, I98O), Norway (Dahl et al., I983), Sweden (Sj/~qvist, I98I), France (Labr6g6re, I984) , Federal Republic of Germany (Schindele, 1977) and other Western European countries. In the United Kingdom and Australia (Hegarty et al., 1981) as in the United States (Slavin, I986), the typical placement for students with learning problems is in regular classes for part of the school day and special classes for one to three hours per day.

While integration of students with learning problems has increased rapidly over the past fifteen years, the movement to place students with mild academic handicaps in regular classes for part or all of their school day has created many problems. Teachers often have ambivalent or negative attitudes toward academically handicapped students, and may feel unprepared to meet their needs (Strain and Kerr, I98I; Gickling and Theobald, 1975). Many questions have been raised about possible negative social effects of integration, as academically handicapped students are frequently rejected by their non-handicapped classmates (Hegarty et al., 1981; Gottlieb and Leyser, I98I; Skfirbrevik, I97I; Labr6g6re, 1984).

Given the difficulties of integrating students with mild academic handicaps (learning disabilities and mild mental retardation) in regular classes, it is important to know the degree to which this practice is actually beneficial for the academic and social development of these students. It is perhaps even more important to known what kinds of programmes or practices are most effective for meeting the academic and social needs of academically handicapped students in regular classes.

The integration of students with mild academic,handicaps in regular classrooms 445

Research comparing segregated special education placements of academically handicapped students and part- or full-time integrated placements has mostly been done in the United States (Cave and Maddison, I978; Hegarty et al., I98I). In Europe, integration has often been mandated by law before comparative studies could be done, and even in the United States most of the best comparative studies were done before the passage of the I975 Public Law men- tioned above. Madden and Slavin (I983) recently reviewed the American literature on integration of students with mild academic handicaps. The main findings of that review are presented in the following sections.

Mainstreaming versus special-class placement

Scores of studies have compared various effects on students with mild academic handicaps of being placed in regular classes to placement in full- or part-time special education programmes. However~ most of these studies are correlational. That is, academically handicapped students in special classes are compared with a 'matched' sample of students in regular classes. Such studies have limited use- fulness, because they share a characteristic bias. There are always systematic reasons (for example, achievement level, I0o behavioural problems) that one student is put into full-time special education while another is mainstreamed. When students in regular and special classes are Cmatched', the matching cannot take into account all the factors that went into the screening committee's decisions, and any unmeasured attributes are likely to work against the students assigned to special education. For example, if the special-class and mainstreamed students were matched on IQ, low-IQ students in the regular class would probably be better (on the average) in actual achievement, behaviour, or any number of other variables, than low-IQ students in the special classes; these non-IQ variables almost certainly had some part in student assignment to regular or special- class placement. These and other serious methodological flaws led reviewers of mainstreaming outcomes (e.g. Cegelka and Tyler, i97o; MacMillan, I977; Semmel et al., I979; Strain and Kerr, I98i ) to conclude that the available evidence concerning mainstreaming outcomes was inadequate to provide any useful conclusions, one way or the other. However, there is a small but not insignificant body of research involving random assignment and adequate measurement, including enough methodologically adequate studies comparing


mainstreamed and special-class placement to permit at least cautious generalizations about the effects of different placements of students with :mild academic handicaps.

Academic achievement

Because it is low achievement that defines students as 'special', improving the achievement of students with mild academic handicaps is a first priority. Special-class placement is intended to enable teachers better to meet the educational needs of low-achieving students. Special educators have felt that a smaller student-teacher ratio could facilitate more attention to individual student characteristics, and that the homogeneous grouping would allow the teacher to target the curriculum to the level at which the academically handicapped students were learning. However, the research on achievement generally fails to support the instructional effectiveness of special-class placement. This research is reviewed below.

Ful l -day special placement versus full-day regular-class placement

Several early studies that examined academic achievement of fuU- t ime special and regular-class placements for educable mentally retarded (EMR) students concluded that regular class placement resulted in superior achievement for these students or that there were no differences. However, in these studies, matched rather than randomly selected groups of students were studied. Matching was usually done on such variables as IQ, chronological age, mental age, and sex. As noted above, these studies provide a poor means of comparison between the two methods of educating mentally retarded students, because it is unlikely that the groups were comparable in the first place.

Later studies used more adequate controls. Two studies used random assignment of students to special or regular class placement, as well as some mechanism to control for differences in teacher competence, in order to evaluate the impact of placement per se on academic achievement. The best evidence of superiority of regular- class placement over special education for academically handicapped students is provided by Calhoun and Elliott (I977). They randomly assigned EMR and emotionally disturbed (ED) students who were

The integration of students with mild academic handicaps in regular classrooms 447

on a waiting list for special education to full-time special education classes or to regular classes. The students were assessed on the Stan- ford Achievement Test every autumn and spring for three years following placement in the different settings. The longitudinal sample consisted of 5o EMR and 5o ED students, evenly divided between the regular and special classes. All the students were black. The mean IQ for the EMR students was 72.4, and for the ED students was 98.1. Teachers, all of whom were certified in special education, rotated across classes each semester, alternating special and regular classes. Curricula (primarily individualized instruction), materials, and equipment were the same in the special and regular classes.

The results of the Calhoun and Elliott (1977) study clearly indicated that placement in regular classes had a more positive effect on the achievement of both EMR and ED students than did special-class placement. A graph of the Calhoun and Elliott findings are shown in FigureI.

In a smaller study, Leinhardt (198o) compared the use of an individualized reading system in special and regular first-grade classrooms. Three groups were compared: a special education programme using individualized instruction, a mainstreamed programme using individualized instruction, and a mainstreamed programme using a basal reading programme. Low-achieving students in the regular class who used the individualized reading system made significantly greater gains in reading achievement than did students in the special classrooms, despite the fact that the transition rooms, which used the same curriculum, had much lower student-teacher ratios and were staffed by some of the school's 'best' teachers. There were no differences between the transition-class students and the students in the regular class who used the basal reading system. Data from teachers' reports suggest that less reading instruction took place in the transition classes; transition-class students completed half as many individualized lessons, worked on sight vocabulary half as much, and read content material one fourth as much as regular class students.

Bradfield et al. (1973) compared the use of precision teaching methods, in which individual curriculum goals and positive conse- quences for task completion were set up for each child, to an unspeci- fied special-class programme. Students were randomly assigned to conditions. Academically handicapped students in the experimental (full-day mainstreamed) programme gained significantly more in three of twelve comparisons, and trends in the remaining comparisons were in the same direction. Non-handicapped students in the experimental programme made significantly greater learning gains in arithmetic in the fourth grade but not in the third grade.

In another carefully designed study, Goldstein et al. (1965) con-

4 4 8 Robert E, Slavin and Nancy A . Madden

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structed what they felt to be an ideal special-education programme, using specially trained and selected teachers and intensive supervision of these teachers by qualified supervisors. In this study, children with IQs of 85 or below were randomly assigned to special or regular classes upon entering the first grade. At the end of the first two years of the study, students in the regular classes showed superior reading skills. At the end of four years, only one difference--in word dis- crimination--was found. This finding favoured the regular-class group. No differences were found between the groups on arithmetic achievement at any point. The failure of the study to demonstrate positive results for the special-class programme was not anticipated by the researchers, who concluded that if such a carefully designed special-education programme did not increase student achievement more than placement in regular classes, then the less carefully designed and implemented programmes found in more typical special-education programmes certainly would not be more effective than placement in regular c/asses.

The findings of Calhoun and Elliott (I977) and Leinhardt (I98o)mthat regular classes designed to meet the needs of academically handicapped as well as non-handicapped students are superior to special classes when curriculum and teacher variables are con- trolledmsuggests that there is some factor related to heterogeneous placement that can serve to enhance student achievement when the regular class is adequately structured to meet the needs of the academically handicapped child.

There is some evidence that in the absence of individualized instruction or other supports in the regular class, lower IQ children (below 70 or 75) may achieve better in a well-structured special-c/ass programme (Goldstein et al., I965; Myers, x976). However, there is no evidence that higher IQ children (above 70) benefit from even the most carefully designed and intensive special classes (Gold- stein et al., r965; Myers, I976). In fact, there is some evidence that these students benefit from regular placement even with minimal support (Goldstein et al., I965; Myers, x976).

Pa r t - t ime p rog rammes

In an effort to capitalize on the best features of special classes, such as smaller class size and an ability to tailor instruction to the individual child's pace and learning style, many mainstreaming programmes provide special teaching assistance to academically handicapped students who remain primarily placed in a regular class. These part-

45 ~ Robert E. Slavln and Nancy A. Madden

time programmes are usually referred to as resource programmes. In a study by Carroll (I967) , all eligible mentally retarded students

were selected from waiting lists of five large suburban school districts, and assigned to part-time resource programmes or full-time special classes based on the policy of each of the school districts. After a study period of eight months, the resource group was found to have made significantly greater gains than the full-time special education group in reading, but not in arithmetic or spelling. Walker (I974), utilizing an experimental resource programme, found superior achievement in word reading and vocabulary for EMR students enrolled in the experimental programme compared with those enrolled in full-time special classes. Sabatino (I97I) found mixed results in a study comparing the efficacy of a full-time special- class programme with two resource plans for learning disabled students.

In the one comparison of part-time resource placement and full- time special education which used random assignment, Budoff and Gottlieb (1976) assigned thirty-one EMR students previously assigned to special classes to either a learning-centre resource programme for forty minutes a day or to a full-time special class. The resource programme was not for academically handicapped students only, but included average and gifted students as weU, in part to remove any stigma associated with having to attend a special programme. Out- comes were examined separately for students with high and low learning potential, a measure of how well students could utilize instruction on a novel task. No achievement differences were found for either group or for the total group.

Thus, the differences in achievement effects between part-time resource programmes and full-time special education are unclear. Selection bias and pre-test differences between the groups mar most of these studies. Budoff and Gotflieb (I976), who did randomly assign students to conditions, failed to find any differences in achievement.

Two studies have compared the effects of part-time resource programmes and full-time regular-class placement. Glavin et al. (i97 I) randomly assigned sixty-one behaviourally disturbed, low- achieving students either to participate in a special individualized resource-room programme one to two days per week or to remain in their regular classes. The resource programme used a token economy reinforcement system for behavioural control and to reward rapid, accurate work. The results of this experiment indicated that students who received the resource-room treatment gained significantly more than control students in reading comprehension and arithmetic fundamentals.


In contrast, Smith and Kennedy (I967) found no differences in academic achievement between EMR students who were randomly assigned to receive either forty-five minutes of special instruction per day, forty-five minutes of non-instructional activity outside of class each day, or full-time regular-class placement.

Wang (1982) compared handicapped students mainstreamed full- time with those who were mainstreamed for subjects other than reading and mathematics but received all of their reading and mathematics instruction in special classes. All students in the regular classroom used published individualized materials within a flexible class-management system. A non-significant trend favoured handicapped students in the individualized class in reading. Scores were comparable in mathematics for handicapped students and in both reading and mathematics for non-handicapped students.

The different results of the studies by Glavin et al. (I97I), Smith and Kennedy (1967) and Wang (I982) would suggest that it is not resource placement per se that increases the achievement of academically handicapped students, but participation in a well-designed, carefully implemented programme, whether implemented in a resource room or in a regular class.

Academic achievement outcomes

The methodologically adequate research comparing the achievement of academically handicapped students in regular classes with full-time special education is limited to a handful of studies, and the effects are not entirely consistent. However, there are a few conclusions that can be advanced.

First, there is evidence that if individualized instruction is used in the regular classes in which academically handicapped students are mainstreamed, the achievement of these students is markedly higher than in special education classes using the same programmes. Admit- tedly, this conclusion is based primarily on the results of only two studies, Calhoun and Elliott (1977) and Leinhardt (I98O). However, these studies are particularly well designed, and their effects are quite large.

Among methodologically adequate studies, only Goldstein et al. (I965) evaluated a regular-class programme that did not use individualized instruction, and they found few differences for academically handicapped students as a whole between special- and regular-class placement. They did find a tendency for low-IQ students to learn best in special education while students with higher IQ did better


in regular classes, trends also found by Myers (r976) and Thurstone (r959) in less well-designed studies. In all three of these studies, no special programmes were used in the regular class to accomodate a wider range of student abilities. Their results, which are in marked contrast to those of Calhoun and Elliott (t977). Leinhardt (r98o) and Bradfield et al. (I973), suggest that the effects of regular-class placement depend substantially on the programme in the regular class.

Evidence concerning the achievement effects of part-time resource programmes is less clear. The results probably also depend on the quality of the resource programmes. The only evidence suggesting that regular-class placement supplemented by resource-room programmes is superior to full-time special education is from the methodologically flawed studies by Carroll (I967) and Walter (r974). However, Glavin et al. (I97 I) showed that at least for behaviourally disturbed, low-achieving students, a highly structured, individualized resource programme with a token economy was more effective than full-time placement in regular classes.

Social and emotional outcomes

Most studies of the social-emotional outcomes of special education programmes have focused on the development of self-concept and on other intrapersonal indicators of social adjustment. Early but still frequently cited studies on the outcomes of special classes compared with regular classes were interpreted to indicate that academically handicapped students attending special classes were better adjusted socially and emotionally than were similar students attending regular classes. However, the correlational methodology employed in these studies raises serious questions about the validity of the findings.

In their randomized study described earlier, Goldstein et al. (I965) found that special-class students showed greater verbal flexibility, fluency and originality than did regular-class students, and that special-class students took a more 'success approaching' stance while regular-class students tended toward a 'failure avoiding' position. There were no differences in anxiety. On the other hand, regular-class students reported playing with 'normal' children in their neighbour- hood more frequently than special-class students did. This may reflect increased contact with their classmates during class time.

Another finding in favour of regular-class placement was reported by Meyerowitz (I962), using data from the Goldstein study. After the programme had been in effect for one year, the students were tested


using an instrument to assess self-derogation. Contrary to the hypo- theses of the study, it was found that children in the regular classes endorsed fewer self-derogatory statements than did the children in the special class. Specific statements endorsed more frequently by the special-class children included the following: 'Kids like to make this child cry'. 'Some kids say nasty things about this kid'. 'This child is not the same as other children'.

In the study by Calhoun and Elliott (I977), described earlier, EMR and ED (emotionally disturbed) students randomly assigned to regular classes were found to have more positive self-concepts than those assigned to special classes after the second and third years of the study. These findings parallel the academic achievement findings of this study, discussed earlier. It may be that success in the regular-class placement was felt to be a greater accomplishment, and was therefore more enhancing to the self-concept.

Pa r t - t ime resource p rog rammes

Many of the researchers comparing special- and regular-class placements for academically handicapped students included resource help as a component of their regular-class placement. It was felt that the resource help would provide individualization to facilitate the academic growth of the special child and would provide a situation where social-emotional growth could occur, as students would be succeeding within a peer group of comparable ability. Also, the resource teacher could provide direct support and training in social- emotional areas to facilitate growth (Budoff and Gottlieb, I976). Clearly, the addition of resource help to the programme of the special child in the regular class has been perceived as important and sometimes critical to the successful integration of the special child in the regular classroom.

Gampel, Gottlieb and Harrison (I974) and Gottlieb, Gampel and Budoff (I975) present data concerning the behaviour of integrated or segregated educable mentally retarded children. In the first study, data were collected about four months after the students were reintegrated into the regular classroom. In the second, students were observed in the spring before integration, two months after integration, and in the spring following integration. In both cases, the behaviour of integrated special students was more similar to the behaviour of non-handicapped students than it was to the behaviour of the segregated students. One hypothesis regarding these effects is that models for behaviour and peer expectations for behaviour are

454 Robert g. Slavin and Nancy A. Madden

likely to be quite different in the regular class than they are in the special class. More models for negative peer behaviour are likely to be found in the special class.

Using a broad range of measures of personal and social growth, Budoff and Gottlieb (I976) also evaluated outcomes of special-class placement compared with regular-class placement with forty minutes per day of resource help in a learuing-centre format emphasizing reading, mathematics and social-emotional development. The learning centre was used by both former special-class students and regular- class students, some of whom were there to receive enrichment activities. Students were classified as either high or low in learning potential. After one school year, regular-class students from both high- and low-learning potential groups were found to have more positive attitudes toward school, and to be more internally controlled. Students with high learning potential were found to benefit much more from regular-class placement than students with low learning potential. Students with high learning potential in the regular class were found to attribute more positive attitudes towards themselves by others, while those with low learning potential in the regular class saw others as having more negative attitudes toward them. Students with high learning potential in the regular class were more reflective in their behaviour. There were no differences for low-learning-potential students on this measure.

A little research has examined the hypothesis that social-emotional gains will be greater for the special child in the regular classroom who receives resource help than for the child who spends his entire day in the regular class, and the findings of this research are mixed.

Meece and Wang (I982) compared the social attitudes and behaviour patterns of academically handicapped students randomly assigned to regular classes for a whole day with those of similar students assigned to regular classes for half a day with special reading and mathematics classes the remainder of the day. All students in the regular reading and mathematics classes used an individualized programme. The academically handicapped students who stayed in the regular classes all day were found to have higher self-esteem and perceived competence than students who were only partially integrated, and received higher peer-acceptance ratings. Because the full-day regular-class programme used an innovative individualized programme, it is unclear whether these effects are due to the programme itself or to the more extensive mainstream experience.

Smith and Kennedy (I967) found no differences between groups os educable mentally retarded students randomly assigned to receive forty-five minutes of special instruction per day, forty-five minutes os non-instructional activity outside the classroom per day, or full-


time regular-classroom placement. Another study, focusing on behaviour-problem children who were also performing below grade level academically, also found few differences between part-time resource placement and full-time regular-class placement on social-emotional outcomes (Glavin et al., 1971). In this study, part-time placement in a carefully designed resource programme based on the principles of reinforcement theory and classroom-behaviour modification was compared with full-time regular-classroom placement. Students were randomly assigned to the resource programme or to remain in the regular class. Findings indicated that the behaviour of students assigned to the experimental programme improved in the resource room, but that improvement did not generalize to their time in the regular class.

Social acceptance of mains t reamed students

The research summarized above relates to social-emotional outcomes internal to the academically handicapped students themselves. How- ever, one particularly important criterion for the success of mainstreaming is that academically handicapped students be socially accepted by their non-handicapped peers. Johnson's (I95O) finding that academically handicapped students were poorly accepted in the regular class was one important impetus behind the expansion of special education programmes for academically handicapped students in the 195os and I96OS. However, advocates of mainstreaming (e.g. Christoplos and Renz, 1969) have expressed the expectation that reintegrating academically handicapped students in regular classes would improve their social acceptance by non-handicapped classmates.

Research comparing the social acceptance of mainstreamed academically handicapped students to that of similar students in self- contained special-education classes is fundamentally difficult to perform and to interpret. The problem is that, by definition, mainstreamed students are better known to their non-handicapped classmates than are special-class students, who may not be known at all. Goodman et al. (x972) and Gottlieb and Budoff (I973), attempted to get round this problem by first asking a sample of non-handicapped students to identify EMR students they knew (a) in their own classes and (b) in self-contained special-education classes. The first study found that male raters rejected known EMR students in their own classes more than known EMR students in the special classes (there were no differences for female raters). Gottlieb and Budoff (1973) found that non-handicapped students in general rejected known EMR


classmates more than known EMR students from special classes. Gottlieb and Leyser (1981) cite these studies as indications that mainstreaming may be detrimental to the social acceptance of EMR students, as non-handicapped students learn how socially inappro- priate EMR students are. In one sense, they may be correct, but it is important to note that the true comparability of the EMR students being rated may be low. Non-handicapped students are likely to 'know' all the EMR students in their own classes, but only a few of the EMR students in the special classes, and the conditions under which they know the special-class students might be more conducive to acceptance (for example, they might play with them on a team or at recess, live near by, etc.).

Two studies assessed the effects of experience with EMRs mainstreamed in regular classes on attitudes toward EMRs in general. A correlational study (Gottlieb et al., 1974) found that non-handicapped students in schools without EMRs had more positive attitudes toward EMRs in general than was the case in schools attended by EMRs. Just the opposite was found in a randomized experimental study by Sheare (I974), who found that students had more positive attitudes toward 'students from the special class' if they had these students in their own classes than if they did not.

As noted earlier, Goldstein et al. (1965) found that academically handicapped students in regular classes reported playing in the neighbourhoods with non-handicapped peers more than did academically handicapped students in special classes. If these self- reports can be believed, this would be a strong indicator of a positive effect of mainstreaming on social acceptance.

The evidence concerning the effects of mainstreaming on the social acceptance of academically handicapped students probably depends to a large degree on the particular measures and procedures used. It is clear that the experience of mainstreaming does not have an unequivocal positive effect on social acceptance, but it is equally clear that it does not have an unequivocal negative effect. The truth is probably that it has both effects at the same time, that as non- handicapped students gain experience with academically handicapped classmates, they lose both fears and romantic notions of what they are like. It is important to note, however, that regardless of placement, academically handicapped students are very poorly accepted by their non-handicapped peers (see Bruininks, 1978; Gottlieb et al., 1978; Johnson, I95O).

The findings of the research comparing the social-emotional growth of academically handicapped students in regular classes compared with full-time special education generally support a conclusion that placement in regular classes with individualized instruction or with


certain kinds of resource support is superior to either full-time special education or regular-class placement without special programmes. The one possible exception is in the area of social acceptance of aca- demicaUy handicapped students by their non-handicapped peers, where it is unclear which type of placement is associated with which social acceptance outcomes, but mainstream placement is dearly not unequivocally beneficial. However, for such outcomes as self- derogation and self-concept, classroom behaviour and attitudes toward school, regular-class placement with adequate supports is typically found to be superior to full-time special-class placement. The only cases in which regular-class placement was not found to improve social-emotional outcomes are studies in which no special supports (such as individualized instruction) were provided to students in the regular class (see Goldstein et al., I965; Cassidy and Stanton, I959; Smith and Kennedy, I967).

Improving the outcomes of mainstreaming

The research comparing regular and special education placements for students with mild academic handicaps could probably not be done today. In most North American and Western European countries, integration of mildy handicapped students is official policy, so it would be difficult to find any segregated students to compare with integrated ones.

At present, attention has turned more toward identifying programmes for use in regular classes or in conjunction with them to ensure positive academic and social outcomes for the integrated students. Such programmes fall into three principal categories: (a) consulting models, in which trained consultants assist regular classroom teachers to accommodate the needs of academically handicapped students; (b) co-operative learning models, in which students work in mixed-ability groups to help one another learn; and (c) individualized instruction models, in which all students work at their own levels and rates.

C O N S U L T I N G MODELS

Consulting models are the most widely used means of helping academically handicapped students in the regular class, but they are also the least well researched. Cantrell and Cantrell (I976) found that academically handicapped first-graders whose teachers received reg-

458 Robert E. Slavin and Nancy tl. :Madden

ular consultation achieved more than did similar students in control classes. However, Miller and Sabatino (1978) failed to find consistent positive effects of consulting models.

CO-OPERATIVE LEARNING MODELS

The most extensively researched methods of effectively integrating academically handicapped students in regular classes involve having academically handicapped and non-handicapped students work in small co-operative learning groups. Studies of co-operative learning methods have indicated that they tend to increase the social acceptance of academically handicapped students by their classmates (BaUard et aL, 1977; Madden and Slavin, I983b; Johnson and Johnson, 1981) and in some cases their achievement as well (Madden and Slavin, I983b).

INDIVIDUALIZED INSTRUCTION MODELS

As noted earlier in this article, outcomes of mainstreaming have been most positive when the regular classes use individualized instruction, where all students can work on materials appropriate to their needs. Research comparing students in integrated classes using individualized or whole-class instructional methods have generally found positive effects of these methods on social (Meese and Wang, 1982) as well as academic outcomes (Leinhardt, 198o). One of the most successful individualized programmes also uses co-operative learning methods. This programme, entitled Team Assisted Individualization, has been found to increase the social acceptance and achievement of academically handicapped students (Slavin, 1984) as well as the achievement non-handicapped students (Slavin, 1985).

The principal implication of research on integration of academically handicapped students in regular classes is clear: While students with mild academic handicaps experience difficulties in the regular classroom, these difficulties should be dealt with by restructuring the regular-class programme to meet more effectively the needs of all students. Segregated placements are sometimes equal, but are hardly ever superior, to integrated placements for the academic and social progress of handicapped students, and specific programmes most effective for integrating academically handicapped students are also ones that improve the achievement of all students. In fact, one possible outcome of the search for effective programmes for use in


integrated classrooms will be a realization that all students are 'special', in that they have unique academic and special needs, and that classroom instruction able effectively to accommodate the needs of academically handicapped students will also be those needed by their non-handicapped classmates. []

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the integration of students with mild academic handicaps in regular classrooms

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