Including Students with Special Needs: A Practical Guide for Classroom Teachers

Citation

Friend, M., & Bursuck, W. D. (2019). Including Students with Special Needs: A Practical Guide for Classroom Teachers (8th ed.). Pearson.

Chapter Summary

The book has twelve chapters, followed by a glossary, references, and name and subject indexes. Pearson's description and the Google Books record present it as a text of cross-categorical, practical strategies for pre-service teachers: it combines basic special education concepts, the professionals who support students, the procedures that protect students' rights, and research-based strategies. It also mentions school scenarios, vignettes of children with disabilities and other special needs, and new material on multi-tiered systems of support. The chapter descriptions below follow the titles and that overview only.

Chapter 1: The Foundation for Educating Students with Special Needs

The opening chapter supplies the background concepts of special education that the rest of the book assumes. By the publisher's account this includes the basic ideas of the field and the professionals who work with students who have special needs.

Chapter 2: Special Education Procedures and Services

This chapter deals with the procedures schools follow so that students' rights are upheld, and with the services that result. It is the book's main treatment of the formal side of special education.

Chapter 3: Building Partnerships Through Collaboration

Collaboration is a theme the title places early, before assessment and instruction, and the chapter is about building partnerships.

Chapter 4: Assessing Student Needs

Its title points to how a student's needs are assessed, a step that comes before instruction is planned.

Chapter 5: Planning Instruction by Analyzing Classroom and Student Needs

Planning is tied to an analysis of both the classroom and the student, which suggests that the fit between a learner and the demands of the setting, not the learner alone, is the starting point.

Chapter 6: Students with Low-Incidence Disabilities

Chapter 7: Students with High-Incidence Disabilities

Disabilities are grouped by how common they are, in two chapters, rather than treated one chapter per category.

Chapter 8: Students with Special Needs Other Than Disabilities

A separate chapter covers students whose needs do not come from a disability, so the book's idea of "special needs" is wider than the disability categories of Chapters 6–7.

Chapter 9: Adjusting Instruction

The first of the book's classroom-practice chapters, on adjusting instruction. Pearson's overview points to research-based strategies and interventions.

Chapter 10: Strategies for Independent Learning

The title places the emphasis on strategies that help students learn more independently, as distinct from adjustments made by the teacher.

Chapter 11: Evaluating Student Learning

This chapter turns to evaluation of student learning in the inclusive classroom.

Chapter 12: Responding to Student Behavior

The last chapter concerns student behavior and how a teacher responds to it.

Key Concepts

Chapters 1–3

• Special education procedures and services: the formal steps and supports through which students' rights are protected.
• Collaboration: partnership as a working method, named in the chapter title.

Chapters 4–8

• Assessing student needs: identifying needs before planning.
• Low-incidence and high-incidence disabilities: the book's two groupings of disability.
• Special needs other than disabilities: a wider category of learners.

Chapters 9–12

• Adjusting instruction: changing teaching to fit learners.
• Independent learning strategies: strategies students themselves use.
• Evaluating student learning: assessment of progress.
• Multi-tiered systems of support: named by the publisher as new information in this edition.

Critical Analysis

Strengths

• Built for the general education teacher. The subtitle and the publisher's description aim the book at pre-service teachers who will teach students with special needs in ordinary classrooms, not at future specialists.
• A sequence that follows teaching work. The chapters move from foundations and procedures, through collaboration and assessment, to planning, to the learners, and finally to adjusting instruction, independent learning, evaluation and behavior. The order resembles the sequence of a teacher's own work.
• Wide notion of special needs. A dedicated chapter on needs other than disabilities keeps the book from treating special education as the whole of inclusion.
• Currency and research orientation. The publisher reports over 400 new references in this edition and describes the strategies as research-based. At roughly 490 pages (the Google Books record), it is a manageable length for a single course.

Limitations

• Brief treatment of each disability. Two chapters cover all disabilities, grouped by incidence. A book organised by category, such as Hallahan, Kauffman and Pullen's Exceptional Learners, will give any single category more room.
• Unspecified legal framework. The public description speaks of procedures that uphold students' rights without naming the legal system. Readers outside the country of the publisher should check how closely Chapter 2 matches the rules where they will teach.
• Practical rather than critical. The title and description are about what to do in the classroom. A reader looking for debate about whether and how inclusion should work will need another source, for example Brahm Norwich's Addressing Tensions and Dilemmas in Inclusive Education.

Where It Fits in the Course

This is the practical, teacher-facing textbook among the introductions in the special and inclusive education course. Hallahan, Kauffman and Pullen's Exceptional Learners is organised by category of exceptionality and adds discussion of identification and legal requirements, so it suits a reader who wants depth on particular disabilities. Turnbull and colleagues' Exceptional Lives is built around real students and families, dignity and high expectations. Friend and Bursuck sit between these and classroom practice: their organisation follows the steps a general education teacher takes.

Mitchell and Sutherland's What Really Works in Inclusive Education is a synthesis of research on teaching strategies and is a natural companion to Chapters 9–12, helping judge the evidence behind particular strategies. Norwich's book is a scholarly analysis of the dilemmas of inclusion and is better read after an introductory textbook such as this one.

How to Use This Book

The book suits undergraduate or postgraduate students in teacher preparation, and practising teachers who need a structured overview. No special background is required; an introduction to education or educational psychology helps.

A practical plan for a single course:

• Core: Chapters 1–5, in order. They provide the vocabulary, the procedures, collaboration, assessment and planning on which the later chapters rely.
• Reference: Chapters 6–8. Read closely the parts on the groups of learners you are likely to teach and skim the rest, returning when a student in your class fits one.
• Classroom practice: Chapters 9–12, read together. Take one situation, such as a student who struggles with written work, and follow it through adjustment, independent learning strategies, evaluation and behavior.

Alongside the book, find the official documents of the education system where you will work, such as the legal framework and a template for individual support plans, and read Chapter 2 against them. Pearson sells the book together with an online MyLab component, but the printed text stands alone. Because the public outline gives only chapter titles, check a library copy for the section-level contents before assigning particular chapters.