Mainstreaming Handicapped Schoolchildren

Your article on integrating students with special needs into regular school classrooms was both timely and balanced in its attempt to outline the issues. However, I would like to clarify a few points regarding the San Diego Unified School District and the problems of integration in general.

It is an overstatement to say that San Diego has “embraced the notion of full inclusion of handicapped students.” At the moment, in our very large district (112,000 students, of whom 13,000 have special needs), there are only a few students with disabilities who are fully included in regular classrooms. And getting the children into those classes has required courage and a pioneering spirit on the part of their parents, teachers and special education support staff.

It is true that the SDUSD has adopted a policy which calls for integration of students with special needs into their neighborhood schools when it is the least restrictive environment appropriate for their education. This does not mean they will attempt to place all students with disabilities at regular sites.

It is important to understand that there are some types of disabilities, such as deafness or orthopedic handicaps, which require special services, such as teachers fluent in American Sign Language or physical therapy, and that these services are better provided to groups of children with these conditions. Children who are deaf or who have severe physical handicaps may need the emotional support of peers who have the same condition.

Finally, it would be a great credit to your newspaper if you would adopt an editorial policy which uses “people-first” language when describing persons with disabilities. This means that you would say, “youngsters with handicaps,” rather than “handicapped youngsters,” and “whose son, a teen-ager with mental retardation,” instead of “whose teen-aged, mentally retarded son,” as the article did.

ANNE S. KARCH, Chair

Community Advisory Committee

for Special Education

San Diego Unified School District