Inclusive Education and Mental Health Preservation for Students

Children with disabilities present a significant social challenge, requiring special attention in the education system. Professional experience with these children does not have a significant influence on forming or changing of the regular school teacher's attitudes toward inclusive education (1). The attitude in which inclusive education creates the basis for mutual positive impact on them and their peers, is the firm argument spoken by the authors who advocate inclusion. No frequent contacts and lack of communication experience with children without disabilities and grown-up have an impact on decreasing the social competence of children with disabilities (2). This resistance would be weakened if the inclusion process were organized in a way that experts got a more important role in the process itself. Those are children who have learning difficulties, problems in behavior, children with borderline intellectual capabilities, children with ADHD syndrome and etc. and a great number of them attend regular school. The aim of this cross-sectional study conducted during Nov and Dec 2012 is to evaluate teachers working with pupils with special needs, in the context of preserving and improving the mental health of the groups involved. The survey instrument was a questionnaire. The teaching cadre sample consisted of 26 class teachers in an urban elementary school, as well as 21 class teachers teaching grade 1 to 4 in the rural elementary school in Serbia. The teachers with less than 18 yr of service consider that the special schools are a better place for children with disabilities (P=0.013), while teachers with more than 18 yr of service consider that it is beneficial for these children's further development to introduce them to regular schools. According to the responses of 59.6%, teachers agree that there are sufficient resources in their schools for implementing the inclusion of the children with special needs. To the question whether the child with special needs could have a negative influence on the entire class success, teachers (51.1%) replied that they partially agree with that statement. We found a statistically relevant correlation between replies from teachers of both schools and the negative influence of inclusion of children with special needs on the children in regular schools (χ 2 =8.228, df=3, P=0,042). Although there are teachers thinking that children with disabilities would be better in regular school, still there are a 44.7% thinking that special school is a better solution for education for children with disabilities. About 70.2% teachers …