From Inclusion to Friendship and Belonging at All Ages

One very common fear we hear from parents is: will my child ever have real friends? Will others realize how funny or deep or nuanced my child is? What about if they communicate, express themselves, or react in ways kids aren’t used to? Will there be true acceptance? And should my child’s school be helping, or is this all on us as parents?

To get answers, we sat down with Dr. Zach Rossetti, an inclusion expert and associate professor of special education at Boston University, to talk about what real friendship looks like, how to foster genuine connections, how to make friendship programs meaningful rather than patronizing, the role of IEPs, and how friendships evolve as our kids grow.

Unfortunately, we know that our kids can be in an inclusive class and still be socially isolated. They might be in the same room as typically developing peers but not be meaningfully included in activities. They might even be acknowledged and high-fived but never receive an invitation to spend time together outside of school.

Dr. Rossetti explains that this often comes from a lack of understanding, especially among young kids, about what their classmate’s behavior or disability means. As they move through elementary school and on to secondary school, neurotypical students start to recognize that teachers treat their peers with disabilities differently, which can be socially awkward. Even in the best scenarios where their peers with disabilities are included, high schoolers are more likely to act as mentors and helpers rather than friends.

How do we bridge those gaps? Dr. Rossetti says it’s helpful to understand that kids with disabilities make friends the same way anyone does: by spending time together and having things in common. “We need to do more proactively and purposely to support social opportunities, higher-quality social opportunities, consistently over time, that eventually, hopefully, would become friendships. I think the key with inclusion is to look at the quality and quantity of social interactions or interaction opportunities.”

Have a friendship mindset

Academics are an important part of school, but so is social-emotional learning. One way that Dr. Rossetti recommends parents work with school teams is to have a friendship mindset: “believing that our students and children would make amazing friends, and that others would want to be friends with them.”

This means encouraging school teams to be on the lookout for ways students can connect. He says, “A friendship mindset is constantly trying to make sure that kids connect socially.” He gives this example: A student with an IEP gets overwhelmed by crowds in the hallway or struggles with transition, so they have an accommodation to leave class early, but that can remove some socialization opportunities as students go together to their next class. He invites school teams to think: “Does it need to happen? Can we do something else? Can we make up for it in other ways?”

One important note: our kids deserve access to both disabled and non-disabled peers, and relationships with one are not more valuable than the other. They should be able to choose their friends just like anyone else.

Create a culture of inclusion

Kids may not understand the importance of inclusion if they don’t know what it means. Dr. Rossetti says that teachers can help “build more inclusive culture in class and explain to all of the students what that means. [For example,] ‘We don't all get the same supports. We get what we need, and when [a student with an IEP] does this, it means this.’ Kind of addressing some of what's not often addressed, so it doesn't become a big deal or a potential barrier to social interactions.” If a student needs behavior support or a communication device, teachers can take the lead on explaining those things to the class. For ideas, check out our article Nurturing Disability Acceptance in Your Child’s School.

Elementary school

Dr. Rossetti says, ”Elementary friendships are largely play-based, and so there's an emphasis on who plays well together. If you enjoyed it and the other person seemed to enjoy it, you're more likely to do it again, and then you get to know each other and develop some of those deeper friendship characteristics and choose to spend more time together.”

Dr. Rossetti has a few specific ideas for encouraging friendships in elementary school:

• During lunch, invite a classmate to sit with them. “Then when they sit together at lunch, the important next step, so it's not awkward or just silent, is to structure the conversation with some kind of topic to talk about.” This could include “pre-teaching the non-disabled peer, which hopefully would be happening in class, about how the student communicates.”
• Have a buddy bench at recess. Dr. Rossetti says, “It's basically a place where anyone, not just students with disabilities, can go and sit if they're bored or not part of a game or an activity at recess and want to join something that other kids are doing. And all of the kids are taught that when you see someone on the bench, you include them.”
• Have recess inclusion monitors. The monitors might be older students who “try to facilitate the same type of thing as buddy bench, so they would be walking around and if they see anyone who's on their own and doesn’t want to be alone, they help them join an activity.”

Check out our article Inclusion in Elementary School for more ideas.

Middle school and high school

Dr. Rossetti says there’s less social time in middle and high school without recess, and students get busier with sports, clubs, and activities, but those activities can be places for natural social interaction to take place:

Schools have to provide supports during extracurriculars if they’re written in the IEP, so if a student requires an aide or other support to participate with their peers, it shouldn’t be a barrier.

Middle schools and high schools might have friendship clubs or peer mentors to facilitate social interaction, but it’s easy for these programs to set up a child with a disability as a project, not a friend. Here’s how Dr. Rossetti recommends we reconceptualize these programs to develop meaningful relationships:

For more ideas, see our articles Inclusion in Middle School and Inclusion in High School.

IEP supports

Dr. Rossetti has some ideas for specific IEP supports that can help facilitate socialization:

• IEP goals: add social components to academic goals, such as working in a small group or with a peer tutor.
• Accommodations: include a peer support or peer editor.
• Non-academic participation: talk to your IEP team about supplementary aids and supports in non-academic settings, such as a school dance.
• IEP meeting participation: in addition to inviting the student to the IEP meeting for a few minutes, perhaps at the very beginning, consider inviting a few of a child’s classmates as well to provide social context and ideas for supports.
• Services: include explicit instruction in social skills, with an emphasis on generalizing those skills outside of the therapist’s room, as Dr. Rossetti explains in this clip:

A lot of our kids need adult support throughout the school day for communication, safety, behavior, access, but that support can unintentionally create barriers to interacting with peers. “That adult can often be literally like a physical barrier,” Dr. Rossetti says. So how can we make sure our kids get the support they need while still having opportunities to socialize?

Fade aide support into peer support

Dr. Rossetti recommends having an aide or paraprofessional help teach classmates what they know. For example, when the student rocks back and forth, that means they’re ready for a break. He says, “Paraprofessionals could convey to peers [how they support the student] as they're fading back and still monitoring, still supervising, but allowing more time for students to interact, modeling that for students, and then letting students try.”

He gives one example: “I've seen 1:1 aides, whether it's with a Social Story or other visuals, prepare students, like ‘Okay, you're gonna go with your friends or with your classmates, and I'm gonna you know let you go, and if you need me or you need a break, you can use your break sign, and I'll be right there.’ There are a number of strategies, but the idea is to try to fade back, pull other kids in, and support them to know how to interact.”

Help peers understand

For big behaviors that can be intimidating to other students, Dr. Rossetti emphasizes that it’s important for adults to 1. understand those behaviors and 2. explain so that students can have understanding too. “[Try] to understand what's going on with those behaviors ourselves, so we can better support our students and children, and then explaining how to support someone. If there are certain signs or triggers, do we need to take a break? Do you need some other support and how to be safe themselves if it happens?”

Adults need to explain kids’ differences in behavior and communication so that they get normalized for peers from a young age. Dr. Rossetti says, “We need to address it, explain it, and make sure they understand fully what's going on. For example, ‘What do you do when you get upset about something? What do you get upset about? How do you show that you're upset? What are your calming strategies?’ What seems like a huge distraction or disruption becomes easier to handle and more normalized in many situations when we do that.”

It’s also important to understand our kids’ behavior because that can provide a place to start for increasing social opportunities. When are behaviors least likely to happen? Are there times, activities, or special interests when these behaviors occur less frequently? Dr. Rossetti recommends starting there.

Take risks

Dr. Rossetti’s final advice for parents is to be patient, keep trying, and take risks. You never know when trying something new will finally click.

At the end of the day, we don't just want someone to sit next to our kids at lunch. We want someone who looks for them when they walk into the room, who misses them when they're out, who wants to be there, not because anyone asked them to but because they're friends.

Thank you to Dr. Rosetti for sharing insights and answering parent questions during our live event! Check out the full recording (with transcript available) here in our resource library.

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