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Therapists expressed common ideas about what they believed to be the best means of educating children with complex disabilities. Their descriptions of children included terminology that highlighted what they perceived to be the nature and severity of a child’s impairments. By first describing children by their impairments, therapists made a case for self-contained

classroom placements. They could then proceed to discuss service delivery decisions from the perspective that children with complex disabilities were best served in the special education setting which they referred to as the child’s natural environment.

I have included a sampling of some of the labels therapists in this study used when discussing children on their caseloads. When they talked about children whose primary placements were segregated special education classrooms and programs, they were sure to differentiate the needs of these children as being different and extraordinary compared to other children in general education settings. When using these descriptions therapists spoke of the children with positive regard and did not use this language with the intent of being disrespectful.

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They mostly used this language to give me, the interviewer; a picture of the children they were talking about. Here are some of the labels and descriptions used by the therapists.

 Multi-handicapped kiddos (Sandra),

 Kids with significant medical impairments; Low-functioning; Muscle impairment friends (Audrey),

 Significant disabilities-global; Very, very significantly involved, (Debbie),  They aren't even functioning . . . at a one-year-old level. I mean, on gross motor

they might be at a two-year level. But on language, they're at a nine-month level. They don't even have words (Katherine),

 Kids with more severe needs. The kind of diagnosis of the kids in that particular classroom is autism and mental retardation. And they're kids that are more involved (Samantha).

This way of talking about children was used by the therapists to differentiate the needs of children whose disability related impairments resulted in greater perceived gaps in cognitive, social, language, academic achievement, and/or physical abilities than most of the children in the school setting. When therapists described children in this way, they were communicating that the nature and characteristics of the child’s disability not only made placement in regular classrooms difficult; but that placement in segregated, self-contained classrooms was preferred.

While it is common among occupational therapists to refer to a child as being

“significantly” impaired; I use the phrase “complex disabilities” when discussing children who have medical, social, physical, cognitive, or other needs that significantly depart from the mainstream population of children in schools. The word “significantly” suggests to me that a classification of the severity of disability exists and can be used to describe some children as

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falling on the extreme end of the disability continuum. For this writing, I will use the term “complex” to indicate that there is a complexity of support and other needs which must be considered in the course of a child’s education.

The self-contained “kiddos”

Therapists used the terms listed in the preceding section to indicate the extent to which they believed a child’s ability level was impaired and to lend credence to the use of self- contained schools and classrooms. Service delivery decisions regarding direct and / or indirect services were made relative to children’s placements in self-contained schools and classrooms. Therapists made decisions about push-in, pull-out, and consultative services based on what they perceived as academic versus non-academic needs of the children with complex disabilities. Discussion about children in self-contained settings typically began with descriptions of the children and the degree to which they have impairments.

For example, when discussing the self-contained school in which she works, Audrey emphasizes the degree and severity of children’s impairments and matches those impairments to the types of supports and services that are available within her school.

The classroom that would serve children who are non-ambulatory, who has multiple impairments, and I’m talking more medical, medical impairments, significant medical impairments. That classroom would be here. So, even if they live in another district, they would likely come here, because it’s accessible. We have a nurse in the building all day long. So, that classroom is significantly different than some of the other classrooms I go into. So, the services I would provide OT-wise for those children is going to look a lot different than, you know, then some of my other classrooms.

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Audrey uses descriptive terms to make her point that children in the school in which she works have disabilities and medical conditions that are so complex that their needs are best met in a school that is accessible, has a nurse, and a special classroom. Audrey first mentions that the children have medical impairments and then qualifies their medical impairments as “significant”. She also states that the therapy services in a particular classroom look very different than they do for other children in the school, although she is not specific as to how the services look different.

Like Audrey, therapists generally talked about children with complex disabilities being better served in self-contained classrooms. When sharing her thoughts about self-contained classrooms, Debbie specifically related the perceived degree of a child’s impairment to their capacity to benefit from general education settings.

I would say we want the children to access the curriculum as much as we can but the most challenging ones for me was when people just went flat out full inclusion. I don’t think it’s in some cases was in the best interest of that child to do that. . . I’m not talking about a child that has - we can accommodate for children that have a certain discrepancy. I have some children that the discrepancy was so huge and what it looked like for that child was to be sitting in the classroom because they couldn’t do anything. . . When I feel like people are asking a child to be in a program that is not even close to fitting their true needs

When therapists described children, they often used impairment terminology to indicate their perception the child’s severity of disability. They then indicated the classroom placement they believed corresponded to the degree of disability or difference they saw in the child. Service delivery decisions were made based on a culmination of these factors. Sandra exemplifies this

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thinking when she describes the children she is referring to and then explains how her service delivery decisions are based on the nature of the classroom setting in which they are placed.

My multi-handicap kiddos, I tend to see more often depending on what kind of setting they're in. If they're in self-contained setting or low incidence program, I try to go more of a consult model with some direct [intervention] instead of pulling them a ton. Because again they're with the teacher all day long.

Sandra has somewhat of a common intervention plan for children with complex disabilities because of their placement in self-contained classrooms. She sees them more often than other children but states that she offers therapy services using both consultative and direct intervention models. She sees this as best suited to children in this type of classroom because, as she states, the teacher is present with the children all day. With the teacher having all day access to the children, Sandra implies that, through a consultation model, she can offer instruction and services to the teacher who can use the strategies with the children all day.

The overall support among the therapists for placing children in self-contained schools and classrooms resulted in an interesting phenomenon in which the therapists considered

segregated, self-contained spaces to be natural environments. In occupational therapy and special education literature, natural environments are those spaces and places where an individual would be if they did not have a disability (Giangreco, 1995; Mu & Royeen, 2004). Special education classrooms, programs, and schools, therefore, are not referred to in the literature as natural environments. Therapists in this study, however, talked about the child’s primary classroom placement; whether it was general or special education, as the natural environment. There were times in the interview process where I sought clarification from the participants about which type

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of education space they were referring to when they stated they were pushing into or pulling students out of their natural environment.

For example, when Janet spoke of natural environments, contrived settings, and generalizing of skills, I asked for clarification of the types of educational settings she was referring to in her discussion. She clarified for me that she was referring to the self-contained classroom as the natural context because it was the child’s primary placement in her school.

I try as much as possible to do everything within the natural context for the student. That again is my default. Right now, I am working in a self-

contained setting, so it’s only students with severe disabilities. In this setting, I especially want to be in that natural environment because these are students who have a hard-enough time generalizing new skills, generalizing any skill across their day. I don’t want to contrive a pull-out environment for them that we are then going to have to generalize back into the

classroom. So, I always try 100% of my sessions are in the classroom, or in the bathroom, or in the cafeteria, or in the art room. I do not do a contrived session.

Janet values the student’s primary classroom environment as being the place in which students are most likely to learn new skills. In addition to the special education classroom, Janet talks about other school spaces, such as the bathroom, art room, and cafeteria as being part of the natural environment. By Janet’s description, this model of service delivery aligns with direct services using a push-in model. In her terms, Janet is opposed to pull-out service delivery for children in self-contained classrooms because she believes the environment for service delivery is contrived when students are not seen in their primary classroom setting.

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