Inclusion and Mainstreaming of Children with ADHD Essay

Inclusion and Mainstreaming of Children with ADHD - Essay Example The paper begins with an over-all discussion of ADHD and includes a review of the latest literature on the topic with an assessment of past empirical findings on the research topic under investigation. Part 1 provides a background, relevance, literature review, and the aims and objectives of the dissertation. Part 2 identifies the factors associated with how the researcher intends to approach this study, explaining methods of data collection and data analysis to be adopted. Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is a condition characterized by hyperactivity, impulsiveness, and inattention that becomes apparent in some children in the pre-school and early school years. The general symptom is the inability to control behaviour and/or to pay attention. Research findings (Greenberg & Horn, 1991) estimated that in some countries like the United States, 3 to 5 percent of children have this condition, which means that in a normal classroom of 25 to 30 children, there would be at least one with ADHD. Although first described by Hoffman in 1845, Still (1902) was the first to describe the condition in a scientific paper and hypothesised the cause to be a genetic dysfunction and not poor child-rearing. Garber, Garber, & Spizman (1990) were the first to use the term ADHD for the condition. Hunsucker (1988) was the first to argue that if persons with ADHD were treated early, there would be a reduction in the juvenile and adult crime rates, school drop-out rates, and alcohol and drug abuse. ADHD is a treatable condition the sooner it is diagnosed and if children with ADHD are provided with special education. This is why there has been an increase through the years in the scientific literature on the topic, more specifically on the issue of mainstreaming and inclusion of children undergoing special education. Mainstreaming is the original term that describes placing children with disabilities in classrooms with non-handicapped children. In the early stages, special education children were placed in special classes and would join regular classroom settings during extra classes such as music and art. This term has evolved into "inclusion" which tries to place special education and disabled children in regular education classes as often as possible (York et al., 1992; Adamson et al., 1990; Cook & Friend, 1992; Conn, 1992; CEC, 1993; Friend & Cook, 1992; Giangreco et al., 1993). These papers argued for the main reasons behind the interest on this issue that have to do with the fact that the classroom and school environments provide an effective factor for early diagnosis, the