Date of Award
Summer 2002
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Education
First Advisor
Bogenschild, Erika G.
Second Advisor
Riordan, Timothy
Third Advisor
Matthews, Janet
Abstract
This dissertation was completed as part of the requirements for a doctorate of philosophy in curriculum and instruction at Marquette University. The motivation and selection of this topic was the result of the researcher's own experiences as a school-based speech and language pathologist. Duri~g the 1992-1993 school year, the researcher was employed by a school district embracing the 'full inclusion' philosophy. The researcher witnessed firsthand the significant progress in language skills, measured in both formal and informal assessments, made by several students on the researcher's caseload. The researcher questioned if this same progress had been observed in other special education students receiving speech and language services. This questioning lead to a review of the literature and a discovery of the limited publication of any quantitative research on the topic. This topic was selected to answer questions the researcher encountered in her personal experience and to add to the body of research on the effect of service delivery models on the language skills of special education students receiving speech and language services. These issues are discussed in greater detail in Chapter One. After the selection of this topic for the dissertation, the review of the literature was expanded. The review of the literature was difficult at first, as there was not use of a common terminology to describe inclusion. In many situations, the term 'integration' was used to refer to including special education students in the general education classroom. Even the term 'inclusion' had different means in the literature. The research on this topic was often more than ten years old and primarily addressed service delivery models for children in preschool settings. Much of the research published in the literature was anecdotal and did not provide quantitative research methodology and results. Other difficulties encountered in the review of the literature are discussed in Chapter Two...