With full inclusion, there would be severely handicapped students incorporated into classrooms with everyday children. It is undeniable that this will probably hamper the learning of some students, and may prove to be detrimental to students who are ahead of where they should be. Besides being a constant distraction, many severely handicapped students have outbursts or exhibit other distracting behaviors which would inhibit the learning of regular education students, especially at the elementary school level. Although inclusion is a wonderful thing when it works, when it fails, everyone involved is at a disadvantage.

If parents could prove that their child’s learning was being interrupted because of a special education student in his or her classroom, that parent should have the right to take his or her case before the court, with the same provisions that are granted to parents of special education students. With basic inclusion, students are incorporated into a regular education classroom to the extent that those individual students are benefiting from a regular education, but also so that they have time in a resource room to understand all the subject matter, and they have a place to go if they are being disruptive and having a bad day. With full inclusion, those students will be in a regular education classroom the whole day, which may be too much for many of them to handle. In addition, they will be disruptive and the other students in the classroom will be affected. It is not right to take the services away from students who depend on them, but it also is not right to expect regular education students to learn in an environment with constant distractions and outburst from their peers. If LRE applies to special education students, why does it not apply to regular education students?

Effects on Students

Although many older students may be mature enough to be able to ignore students with disabilities in their classes, younger students may not be able to do this. Children with Autism often flail their arms and stare off into space, and children with Turret’s Syndrome also display odd tendencies which many of these young children have never seen before. Eventually, they would probably accept the children, and may even be a more understanding and knowledgeable person because of it, as full inclusionists believe, but to just place a child with those tendencies in a regular classroom would be disruptive, and younger students, even later in the school year, would have trouble not paying attention to these students instead of their lesson a few times a day. In Special Education and the Law, there is a list of reasons why a student may require a more restrictive placement than a regular education classroom. On this list are reasons such as the student is not progressing in his or her current placement and the student requires resources which are not available in the regular classroom, but there are also reasons like "the student’s presence in the less restrictive environment is disruptive to the educational process of others" and "the student is dangerous" (1). As mentioned in the "Full Inclusion" essay, some students with disabilities such as Severe Emotional Disorder (SED) present a danger to their classmates, as they cannot control their emotions and often express them by hitting, pushing, kicking or throwing objects. Obviously, this could present a big problem in a regular education classroom, where the teacher may not be equipped to handle that situation, or may not know what to do to stop it. The disruptions caused by some students with emotional impairments are not minor, and they will take valuable learning time away from other students. In his article, "The Pull of Societal Forces on Special Education," James Gallagher writes, "There is something amiss in the full inclusion plan – that fairness does not consist of educating all children in the same place at the same time (and with the same curriculum?) but in ensuring that the student has basic needs met and is traveling a well-thought-out road to a career and a satisfying life style" (2). Gallagher is emphasizing the idea that each child has their own needs which need to be met. For students with disabilities, these needs may need to be met in a resource room by an intervention specialist, or by a physical or occupational therapist. Full inclusion would mean that these students would not have those outlets, and without them, they may not be able to handle inclusion.

Less Severe Disabilities

Even students with disabilities as minimal as learning disabilities can disrupt an entire classroom's learning pace because of the extra effort and time it often takes them to fully understand a subject. In fact, the Learning Disabilities Association of America issued the following statement in regards to full inclusion:

The Learning Disabilities Association of America does not support ‘full inclusion’ or any policies that mandate the same placement, instruction, or treatment for ALL students with learning disabilities. Many students with learning disabilities benefit from being served in a regular education classroom. However, the regular education classroom is not the appropriate placement for a number of students with learning disabilities who may need alternative instructional environments, teaching strategies, and/or materials that cannot or will not be provided within the context of a regular classroom placement (3).

When groups such as the Learning Disabilities Association of America are speaking out against full inclusion, individuals must realize that the idea is flawed. Not only will it not benefit all students in special education, it will also hamper the learning of regular education students. As stated in IDEA, all students deserve the right to a free and appropriate public education, and full inclusion would take that right away from many regular education students.