Self-determination and Third Generation inclusion practices

This paper proposes that the convergence of pressures exercised by the world efforts to reform schools, research advances, practices related to self-determination, student-oriented learning, and new methods to understand and conceptualize disabilities require a review from all of us, as educators, of the historical approaches and interventional models, in an effort to stop creating student programmes based on labels and to proceed to design truly generalized aids.The creation of gregarious, independent services must be stopped and inclusion practices must be implemented.Attention must not be placed on the disabilities and deficiencies of our students, but on their strengths. Such influences have led to third generation inclusion practices. First generation inclusion practices were focused on changing students from gregarious situations to inclusion classes. Second generation inclusion practices focused on developing and validating strategies in order to support students with disabilities in inclusion classes. Third generation inclusion practices switched the focus from the place where a student is educated to what he or she learns. At the heart of third generation inclusion practices is the attention given to promote and encourage students' self-determination, including students with disabilities and special needs, hence guaranteeing that the curriculum is universally designed and that the instruction is flexible for all the students, implementing interventions in all the school that are beneficial to all the students (such as aids for positive behaviour). Attention is also given to create a vision of schools that includes all students. Research in this area suggests that third generation inclusion practices permit students the achievement of greater access to the general education curriculum, leading to more positive results in education and giving students, as adults, greater power as it will allow them to lead their own lives in a more efficient way. Equally, our research shows that students who finish school being young with self-determination attain more positive results as adults and achieve a better quality of life and more satisfaction in their lifestyles.