ABSTRACT
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004 requires students with disabilities be provided a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment (LRE). The LRE mandate of IDEA has increasingly emphasized that students, regardless of the severity of their disability, be educated to the maximum extent appropriate in the LRE with their peers without disabilities. IDEA further states that separate schooling or removal of students from regular educational environments should occur only if the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in those settings cannot be achieved even with the use of supplementary aids and services. Yet, despite the preference expressed in IDEA for education in general education settings, most students with intellectual disability continue to spend most of their day in segregated classrooms. In this chapter we first review the historical context and the evolving view of the LRE for students with disabilities. We then spend the second half of the chapter reviewing the evidence base for inclusive education, particularly for students with intellectual disability.
