ABSTRACT
As we noted in chapter 1, the principle of self-advocacy is one against which the activities of any inclusive project must be judged. Consistent with the notion of inclusion is the principle that children and young people should be allowed and enabled to determine their own future, and that they should have a say in the way that their schooling proceeds. The alternative to self-advocacy, as Mittler (1996) points out, is a continuation of a situation in which professionals dominate decision-making about people with disabilities. In such a situation, children’s abilities are often underestimated and they are put in situations which are inappropriate and in which they are open to indignity and injustice.
