Inclusive Education and Universal Design for Learning: A Road Map for Rehabilitation Professionals

Introduction

The field of special education is filled with variations of service delivery models, collaboration among multiple service providers, ongoing documentation, frequent testing, and the creation of individualized plans all designed to help a child with a disability access the general education curriculum. For pre-service teachers and emerging rehabilitation professionals, special education can feel daunting. General and special education pre-service teachers work on pedagogy related to their field. Future speech and language pathologists master the science and best practices related to the speech and hearing mechanisms. Occupational and physical therapists focus on ways to manipulate bodies and the environment to maximize client success. Vision therapists become subject matter experts on assistive technologies that help clients gain autonomy. Although these preparation programs may include overviews of other related service providers outside of their fields, often, the overviews are cursory at best. This leaves emerging professionals in each respective field without an understanding of how they can and should be working with one another in the classroom setting.

Causton and Tracy-Bronson (2015) eloquently capture the essence of collaboration among professionals stating:

Indeed, the goal is working together as a team, but how we get there is often unclear. Typically, student goals and plans are determined in isolation of goals from other related service providers rather than working together. This chapter demonstrates why educators and multiple related service providers should work together as a team to provide students with disabilities with thoughtful and intentional supports that strive toward a collaborative goal of increasing access to the general education curriculum.

Addressing the needs of students with disabilities is and should be a team effort (Asher, 2010; Bricker et al., 2020; Giangreco et al., 2000; Jordan, 2020; Teasley & Cruz, 2014). Students with individual education plans (IEP) often require “related services, which are school-based services that each child with a disability will be receiving that provide[s] support for him or her and enhance[s] educational performance” (Pierangelo & Guiliani, 2012, p. 339). Therefore, there is a significant onus placed on all care providers to work together to ensure student success. By using the frameworks of inclusive education and the principles Universal Design for Learning, the author will demonstrate the importance of establishing cohesive and collaborative relationships among educators and related service providers. She will also explore tensions and challenges that could potentially arise when working with a team of providers and then will offer suggestions for meeting those challenges. Strong, collaborative partnerships mean all team members recognize and value the potential of every student in their care.

If future educators and emerging rehabilitation professionals are truly invested in meeting the diverse needs of all of our students, then they must stop thinking and acting in isolated ways: “These are my students and those are your students.” They must relinquish traditional roles and redistribute job functions across the system. Creating a solid team shifts the language from a yours/mine binary to simply ours. Understanding the principles of Universal Design for Learning is paramount in creating an inclusive classroom environment. This chapter demonstrates how the two (inclusive education and Universal Design for Learning) create natural pathways for educators and related service providers to work together to meet the needs of children with disabilities.

The author’s experiences as a K-12 classroom special education teacher and as a professor in a teacher preparation program at a college provide insight to and practical suggestions for preservice teachers and emerging professionals to learn to engage collaboratively with one another while still meeting the individual requirements of their services in an inclusive environment. In this chapter, the author explores the nexus between inclusive education, Universal Design for Learning, and what this “looks like” for educators and rehabilitation professionals in the classroom.