Inclusive Classrooms: Teaching Social Skills to General Education & Special Needs Students
Childhood Education Article is Finalist for 2002 Distinguished Achievement Award

Olney, MD— An article published in the Winter 2001/02 issue of Childhood Education, the official journal of the Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI), has been selected as a finalist for a 2002 Distinguished Achievement Award from the Association of Educational Publishers, aka EdPress (Learned Article category). "Developing Social Competence in the Inclusive Primary Classroom," by Lauren O. McCay, Associate Professor, Early Childhood and Elementary Education, University of Montevallo, Montevallo, AL, and Denis Keyes, Associate Professor, Special Education, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC, focuses on the U.S. education policy of including students with learning disabilities and mild mental retardation in general education classes. EdPress winners will be selected on June 5 at the National Press Club in Washington, DC.

"Teachers may be overwhelmed by the varying needs of students in inclusive classrooms," says Gerald Odland, Executive Director for ACEI. "This article offers solutions. To have the Association of Educational Publishers recognize the importance of this topic and select a Childhood Education article as a finalist is a great honor."

In "Developing Social Competence," McCay and Keyes say that while proponents of inclusion list the social integration of children with disabilities as a central benefit, research shows that peer interaction is not always positive. For best results, educators must initiate prosocial interactions among students and project their own unconditional acceptance of all children. The authors discuss teaching strategies for five areas of social competence: social sensitivity, independence, assertiveness, friendship-building, and social problem-solving. They conclude that educators must use various strategies to teach social competence, and adjust the levels of skills training to the needs of the students.

Childhood Education articles won the Distinguished Achievement Award in 1992 and 2000. The rigorous selection process makes being a finalist a noteworthy honor. A two-tiered judging panel selects no more than four finalists in each category. Judges' scores will be available from EdPress in June.