Features of integrated educational ecologies that predict social behavior among severely mentally retarded and nonretarded students.

Educational contexts for integrating 245 severely retarded students, ages 3 to 22 years, were conceptualized in terms of an ecological model. Measures were developed for school resources and staff support, educational planning, characteristics of integrated severely retarded students, the social environment, the physical environment, and the specific interactive environment. The degree of integration of each severely retarded student was measured by the rate per minute of social bids that students directed toward nonretarded students in the environment. Eight 10-minute observation sessions were scheduled across a school year. Stepwise-regression analyses were used to select measures representative of each aspect of the educational ecology. Approximately 32% of the variance in degree of integration was uniquely associated with the social behavior that other students directed toward the retarded students, p less than .001. Results suggest that nonretarded students are the key to successful integration efforts.