Ep. 46: Reverse Inclusion in Special Education – Building Peer Connections and Social Skills

What if inclusion didn’t just mean “pushing students in” but also “inviting peers in”? In this episode, we chat with Megan Stenziano from Moms Managing Behavior about a game-changing approach called reverse inclusion. From lunch and recess to peer buddy programs and after-school activities, Megan walks us through how her school created inclusive, meaningful social opportunities for all students. We discuss creative ideas, practical solutions, and even a program so popular it had parents saying, “It’s harder to get into than Taylor Swift tickets!” 🎟️ Don't miss this one!

✨ Key Takeaways
📢 What is Reverse Inclusion? — It’s when general education students join self-contained classrooms to create more comfortable and familiar spaces for students with disabilities.

💡 Why It Works:
✔️ Students feel at ease in their "home turf" classrooms.
✔️ Tools, supports, and sensory needs are already in place.
✔️ Less stress from big transitions to noisy, unfamiliar spaces.

We talk about:
🤝 Peer Buddy Programs
🎨 Creative Inclusion Ideas
📈 How to Get Admin Buy-In
🧠 Take Data for Better Decisions
💪 Pro Tips for Starting Small

Ideas for Reverse Inclusion Activities:
ABA Art & Gym Specials — Invite related arts teachers to teach lessons in self-contained classrooms.
After-School Clubs — Sensory crafts, bead-making labs, and social skills clubs are all big hits.
Peer Lunch Buddies — Pair gen ed students with ABA students at lunch for more socialization.

📚 Resources
Here are the tools, people, and strategies mentioned in this episode:
Moms Managing Behavior — Learn more about Megan’s work supporting schools and families:
🌐 MomsManagingBehavior.com
📸 Instagram: @MomsManagingBehavior
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/momsmanagingbehavior

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💬 Get Involved: Share your best inclusion ideas in our Facebook group or tag us on social media. @TheMisfitBehaviorists
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Transcript

Ep 46 Reverse Inclusion

Meghan: [00:00:00] I think the biggest thing is that we have to advocate for our students and for our learners. I don't take no for an answer. I take maybe not yet, but I'm always trying to think of ways that we can have our students participate and sometimes you have to really think outside the box.

Intro: Welcome to the Misfit Behaviorist podcast. Join your hosts, Audra Jensen and Caitlin Beltran, here to bring you evidence based strategies with a student centered focus. Let's get started. 

Audra: Hey, welcome back to the Misfit Behaviorist. And we have Caitlin here today with a special guest. So tell us who we have today.

Caitlin: That's right. We have Megan Stenziano joining to talk with us about inclusion or more specifically reverse inclusion. Can you talk to us a little bit about what that looked like in your classroom specifically, kind of where your head was at and maybe like what barriers you encountered along the way?

Meghan: I think the biggest challenge was learning how to advocate for the students and come up with solutions with the district and administration on how we could [00:01:00] make it work for the school environment but also allowing our students to be included as much as possible. The first thing we really did was look at the student's schedule and say, okay, where could the students be included first? Where would they be most successful? And obviously the more social times that came to mind were lunch and recess and snack that gives the students a lot of opportunity to talk to their peers and Typically have the skills needed to go into that type of setting but we really wanted to expand on not just eating and I don't know if you've been in a public school cafeteria. It's loud. There's a lot of barriers that you don't think of. And they have like 10 minutes to eat and it's like, okay, time to line up. We really tried to look to see where else we could integrate the students.

Another area we looked at were our related arts and in the younger grades, we found that to be very successful. If the student was interested in the topic but where we really started to struggle is actually when we got to the older grades, for instance, second or third grade music class, you're not just singing a [00:02:00] fun song and dancing. You're actually learning to read music. You're learning about composers. Same thing with art, right? You're learning, you're sitting and listening to a lecture for 10 minutes about an artist and then trying a certain technique. And we found that that wasn't always the best place to integrate our students because there was, again, a lot of barriers, especially if our students have, say, for instance, fine motor challenges are, might not be the best place to integrate.

Caitlin: I was thinking Oh my gosh, like that's what we've been feeling for so long because we're always trying to push these kids into their specials. And like you said, really at like first, maybe second grade is when in those specials, they're learning the lesson. It's a content area. And so sometimes the specials teachers will tell us like, can you come a little late and like leave a little early? Well, that's the whole period, you know, like, So there's not that much time for socialization. It's not kids are holding hands and singing a song or passing around crayons the whole time, but there's a curriculum behind it. Like there's a whole thing going on that doesn't always leave room for that socialization that we're looking for.

Meghan: We used to look at like interests, right? So if a student [00:03:00] really was interested in music, like great, like we have the motivation there, let's do it. We actually found sometimes that that was almost worse because they wanted to do what they wanted to do in music class, right? So they think music, they want to sing a song, they want to play on the piano. They want to draw what they want to draw. And we actually found that it almost kind of backfired because they were so interested, but in more of what they wanted to do in that setting. A lot of kids just want to run around in an open gym. And they're like, no, we're going to play volleyball today. And they're like, no, I want to run. 

Caitlin: I was in a gym class maybe a few weeks ago, and it was a second grade student, and they were playing this adorable game, and it was Halloween themed. I mean, the gym PE teacher was, is amazing, and it was like putting the beanbags in the bucket, but then you can also steal, and some of them are points, and then you have this little girl, you know, who's just seeing a ball in a bucket, and she's throwing it, and she's like losing points on her team, and the other kids are getting mad, and it's so hard to, Fit everything into that, like that socialization opportunity that maybe we thought of when [00:04:00] we planned for her to go to gym just really wasn't panning out and we ended up making it work. But can you speak to some of the more creative outside the box ideas? So rather than keep trying to squish the kids into these settings where you found that it wasn't successful, what did your program start to look like? 

Meghan: One of the first things we did is we went to administration and asked if we could have ABA specials where we would actually have the ABA students participate in the same specials, but just again with their self contained in a smaller group and work on the skills that are needed in order to go to the Gen Ed special, right? So things you don't think of like taking turns, tolerating losing, all of these things that are typically very hard. And if you're in a gen ed class and this happens, you engage in a challenging behavior, what happens? You leave the class, right? So you're not getting the teaching opportunities needed. So that's why we focused on, in the ABA setting, although the Art teacher might be teaching the art lesson. Our focus is can you sit at the carpet and listen to the lesson? Can you transition back [00:05:00] to the table? Same thing with gym. Could you go from station to station? Could you tolerate not being on the team with someone you want? Would you tolerate losing? Could you tolerate leading? It's not just the sports skill or the art skill. It's like all those other type of behaviors that you need to have to be in the gen ed setting. 

But again, that didn't necessarily always pan out as inclusion, right? Because you're still with your self contained setting. So our next was this idea of reverse inclusion which we consider in our school, we call it a peer buddy program, and it's where the gen ed students actually push into the ABA classroom. And for many reasons, we find it to just be so much more successful. One is the environment, right? So the students are in an environment where they're comfortable. They're used to being in the setting. We also have all the tools we need if a student has a break area or their own desk or their sensory items or their reinforcers or whatever they might need is there. And they're not transitioning. We know that that could be a challenge for many of our learners. So they're already in the room. They're not making that transition to a new environment with new [00:06:00] students. We're able to have a really dense ratio, right? So we have the para with each student, assisting in the socialization versus going into a gen ed class where there's now 20 kids plus the para and assistant. 

When we first had this idea, honestly, our biggest fear is that no one would want to do it. And the exact opposite happened. We had so many students sign up. I would say the biggest challenge is scheduling, right? Because we really can't do it during those major academic periods. So we have to look more towards like the snack time or the end of the day kind of wrap up time, things like that.

So we usually have two peers to each ABA student. And the reason for that is like, if someone's absent, but also in the beginning we'll do a lot of like board games and we find playing Uno with two people could get like a little boring. We actually have rotated throughout the year too, because we wanted everyone to have the opportunity to participate.

We try to do really structured activities that are the same routine. Our students are kind of thriving on that routine of, you know, we're going to start with a topic, we're going to We're going to do an activity, we presented [00:07:00] maybe on the smartboard with a ton of visuals and schedules and things like that that our students are familiar with.

I think not only do our students get something out of it, but so do you know the other students in the class and, one of the things we do prior is we do a training, I guess you could say, for the Gen Ed students. We talk to them about disabilities and how people might communicate differently and things you could see. Obviously you have to be very careful. We can't label the disability or label the students. It's a little bit tricky, but, we do try to give them strategies, things like teaching them about wait time and things like that. And the other huge thing we do, which has been really helpful. We have a lot of students in our class who have AAC devices. So we actually have our speech therapist come in and train the students on AAC devices, which is like every student's favorite day of the year. She actually brings extra AAC devices in and allows the peers to try it. And we found it such an eye opening experience because they develop so much more empathy for our learners and [00:08:00] understanding that it's so hard, right? So we have them practice having conversations with the AAC device, and they realize it's hard to find the word you want to say and I just think it's so great, and it teaches them if you ask a question to the peer, Give them time. It's not that they don't want to respond to you. It's that they're thinking of their answer just like you had to. 

Caitlin: I love that so much. I feel like you're killing so many birds with one stone just teaching like that empathy and kindness and compassion to their peers even in the broader context outside of school.

Audra: I wanted to add also I love that you cycle through different groups of kids because then you have the entire school base who gets to know those students and they see them out on the playground and you have such a bigger base of empathetic kids around you which is fantastic. 

Caitlin: The idea of it being like on their home turf, I think, is just so cool. Because when it's in the Gen Ed classroom, whether it's in the classroom or art, it's always like, we're the outsiders, you know? And now you've created an environment, your Gen Ed peers can see these [00:09:00] students shine and thrive in what they do best when it's their routine, and that's awesome. 

Meghan: And they love it, right? Because a lot of times kids don't come into those rooms. So, you know, I do have a student I can think of in particular who soon as someone comes in the room, he's like, look at my Legos, come look at my stuff, right? Like, it's like a little kid in their bedroom showing off their stuff. And it makes the other kids not as like, what is that room down there where there's a lot of adults in there all the time, you know? So I think it's nice to like open up and show them it's a regular classroom. You know, there might be less students in it, but it's set up just like you would see any other classroom. 

And the other part we actually see, especially with the AAC devices is when they see a student who was previously struggling, you know, maybe week after week to use the device, maybe during a game to say your turn, and then they see it happen, it's actually so cool to then watch the peer be so excited and just provide that natural peer social praise, and then our students love that in return, right? Like they just want the acceptance from their peer. There have been times where [00:10:00] maybe a challenging behavior occurs and we still, without fail, get repeat students who want to do it. Sometimes they ask hard questions, right? Like why don't they talk? Why are they making that sound? Why are they moving that way? But I also feel like it's a good safe space because I think, as we all know, in the world we live in, people don't always respond to those questions. They're just like, oh, don't say or don't do that. And I would say our school is just so accepting because the kids understand it more. 

Audra: They're going to take that knowledge and that skill set out into the community. And so your entire, not just your school community, but your general overall community is going to benefit from that. And then you have the kids who have grown up in that kind of environment. And then they see somebody else in the community. And then it's not such a weird stigma thing for them to be worried about. 

Meghan: It's been so beneficial to the entire community. And I think parents see that, right? They're so happy, you know, students who aren't your typical kids who you would think would have the opportunity to integrate. And then on top of doing reverse inclusion, we thought of like, wow, this was so [00:11:00] successful. What could we do next? So the next thing we kind of looked at were after school activities, because that's something parents always come to us and say, I want my child to participate in after school activity, something they enjoy. And it's hard because we say, well, you know, there are programs for other students who have special needs, but then you may not be getting the socialization piece you want. Or you might have a soccer team that is in and you might get that socialization piece. But there's so many barriers that they're not successful, right? The challenges, they come. So we, our school has an after school program that our PTO runs, and they have all different topics you can think of, dance and soap carving is one of them, technology, magic, chemistry, all these different topics. And, you know, ABA parents approach us and say, I want my child to participate. And our fear was honestly it's one teacher and 20 students and no support because it's an afterschool activity and we didn't want them to not be successful. And as much as we wanted to support the parents and doing this, we were like, [00:12:00] I also don't want to say do this and it's a disaster. So we approached the PTO and said, how about we do an integrated afterschool program? This is how it could benefit. And we went over reverse inclusion and how it's benefited the school during the school day. How could we move that forward? And again, our concern was we wouldn't get enough parents to sign up to make the PTO money. And we had the exact same opposite happen, right? We had one parent tell me it was harder to get into my club than to get Taylor Swift tickets. And I said, that's gonna be like a t- shirt I make one day. So we actually had to cut it off, like a limit, 'cause we were like, this is a lot of people. And we started out with just a social skills club where we honestly just worked on a new social skills topic every week, and we would do video models, we would play games like charades, we'd talk about emotions and body language and all that and it was like a super successful thing and then we really got crazy and just kept going, so each semester we did a sports club we just are wrapping up our sensational [00:13:00] crafts club which was all sensory based crafts the winter we're going to do a bead lab where we make like jewelry and it's really been so successful.

And I think what's been amazing about it is that we're able to have some of our students along with some of their peers and it's just the two of us. So we've been able to really limit our ratio, which these kids are used to a one to one, and it's really been great. Again, the program is run in our ABA classroom. So it's a safe space for them. It's something they're familiar. We eliminate the transition from after school to a different setting. And you know, the peers come to us and it's been really, really successful and the parents couldn't be more grateful to have their child be able to participate in these activities and to be with their peers. 

Audra: Did you say how it was funded?

Meghan: It's through our parent teacher organization, however, parents pay, which parents pay for if they sign up for any of the after school programs. So it's kind of like a set fee and then we get a certain cut.

We try to pick topics we [00:14:00] know our learners would tend to have more motivation to stay on track. Obviously, it's a little looser than school, right? We're not running our behavior plans. But we know the students, so when they need a break, we know what type of reinforcement they need. And we are actually very lucky, too. We have had people volunteer to help us. So specifically, like, we have a student with an AAC device. And he's new to it, so he needs a lot of modeling and assistance. And so our speech therapist has volunteered her time, our occupational therapist has volunteered her time. We have BCBA students working towards their hours that volunteer their time. And, you know, even the parents are like, bring back just the social skills and these are like, you know, the typical peers that the parents like everyone needs that. 

Caitlin: I think so many of those little things that you mentioned, and I'm sure this could fit in a bunch of different districts in a bunch of different ways, and a lot of the logistical things, like the funding and things, I'm not sure it would fit everywhere, but so many of the little things you talked about, would eliminate so many of the barriers right off the bat, like just the idea of like having it be in their classroom, those are the tiny little things that you don't [00:15:00] think about when you have a student with autism going from a self-contained to try to do an art club for the first time with a para who's unfamiliar, like if you can eliminate two out of three of those barriers, I feel like you're so much likely to meet with success. 

Not so much in the after school program, but when you're doing this reverse inclusion talk to us about what kind of data are you taking to make sure that things are not just on your target student skills, but to make sure the program's succeeding and things like that.

Meghan: Obviously since it's happening during the day, we're continuing to collect any target behavior data that we typically collect. And sometimes we will separate out reverse inclusion time versus other periods of the day to kind of look at the data patterns and see if we do notice more challenges and in certain areas. Obviously, if there is a target behavior, you could be working on at that time, especially because it's more natural, right? A lot of those behaviors like greeting others, turn taking, making eye contact, initiating conversations, a lot of times those are hard in a self contained setting, right? They're very contrived and it's like, [00:16:00] what's your name? It's like, I know you've been my teacher for years, right? You know, responding to a peer, sometimes we don't have peers in the classroom that we can actually work on that skill with or especially if it's something that you might have to maybe take multiple trials. You want to run it a few times. You know, play based programs. We try to do it, just more in that natural environment. And we do have really great peers. So we can even kind of say, Hey, this student is working on this skill. Could you help me out? Could you ask this question? Could you give them this much wait time? Could you prompt them? And they love it. They feel like they're being like a teacher and we are able to get so much of those types of programs done in that time, or it's just more natural for them. And then, of course, we're always looking to see how this is actually increasing social skills, right? So we might take specific data, depending on a student on one specific skill that we're working on and see if just by doing this reverse inclusion. 

And it's really helpful when we're making decisions, especially on [00:17:00] placement. We have a lot of parents who want their kids included, you know, in the classroom all day long. And it's hard conversations to have, but I actually find that you have the data, right. Here's the facts. When they're in this setting, this is what they can do. And when they're in this setting or with these students, and it really helps us to sometimes get that point across to parents. So that's been really beneficial in making parents understand why we're making the decisions were based on. And when we say, hey, we don't think right now is the most appropriate time for your child to integrate for this reason or the other, but we have reverse inclusion. So we are still working on trying to get there. From that perspective, taking the data, saying we have a plan, maybe having a criteria once they get to this much on task percent of independence, great. We'll say that might be more appropriate to move them to the gen ed setting. 

Audra: Yeah, I was going to say you have a pretty sweet setup with all the staffing and situation that you have there. I guess my question would be, what would you say to [00:18:00] kind of a more typical school environment teacher who may want to bridge this sort of conversation with their admin. What was what would be kind of the first thing you would think to recommend somebody to start with that doesn't have a para for every student. 

Meghan: No, I get that. I think for us, one of the big things, at least approaching administration, was like, hey, come see our program, see what we're talking about, come and actually look and see what we want to do. I found administration actually were easy to get the buy in because they did find when the student goes to the gen ed setting, we were having more issues that then they had to deal with, right? So they kind of were like, Oh, you have a better option that you could do. Great. I think there was skeptics at first, I'm not gonna lie, like, how will this go? What if the student has a challenging behavior when the peers are in the room? And , we just basically kind of had to answer their questions and, and say, if you want to come and see it, come observe.

Even the gen ed teachers that were sending their students to us, we were like, do you want to come see what we're going to be working on? So I would say really having stuff prepared and structured if you don't have as much staff to facilitate, just [00:19:00] have stuff prepared. So we would have slides up on the board that would say, today, our focus is figuring out your peers favorite color. And that was the focus. And we would have the slide up, and we'd role play some situations of talking. And then we'd say, okay, today we're gonna make slime and we're gonna make slime, and here's the directions, and here you can talk about your favorite color. And at the end of the session, I'm going to come back and I want you to be able to answer that question to me and just really having it kind of set up. And then you are able to kind of go around and kind of monitor and not feel like you need that much staff. 

Audra: I was supervising in one program where, and it was around COVID time, so students were starting to come back, and so there were a lot of behaviors and we weren't able to get them into kind of the gen ed specials like we had before. And so we did a bridge, is what we did is we'd have their scheduled time with their music or PE but they would come into the classroom. Everybody had a little rolling cart, the music teacher had a little rolling cart with all of her stuff, and so she would go in and, at their developmental level, [00:20:00] do activities and stuff and then eventually we were able to do the same type of thing as they moved back into the classroom. So that's another thing you could talk about with your admin if you're having challenging behaviors, if you're your specialist teachers would come into your classroom during their times.

I thought of one other area that we did do this kind of reverse inclusion was recess because we found that, and I think this just goes across the board for students and schools in general, recess 

Meghan: time is just one of the more challenging times to manage behavior in a school. There's so many kids and not that much staff. And it's a free for all, right? We found that a lot of our students really had difficulty during recess. It just was not structured for them and were engaging in challenging behaviors and oftentimes targeting peers to the point where it was like, should we remove them from recess? And obviously we don't want to do that. And nor are we really allowed to do that because you have to go to recess. And so something we started doing recently with some of our students who, just going to recess is way too challenging for [00:21:00] them, is doing a reverse inclusion where they go to recess and we have one student come to the playground with them to get that time. And hopefully we will build upon it once they can learn those self control things that they need to have. I'm thinking of a student in particular who often targets peers. And it's because they want to play and socialize. They just don't have the skills yet, but removing them from recess isn't teaching them the skills. So we've slowly, you know, started to like add students into their recess. And that's like another type of reverse inclusion. 

Caitlin: I love that so much because I think we don't always think about that when we're thinking about traditional inclusion. You have, for example, a learner with significant skill deficits in areas like waiting, or they get overstimulated, or they can't share and can't take turns. And we're practicing them in controlled areas all morning. And then you just like fling them out with 50 other kids. And like, of course, they don't always succeed, because they're working on all those skills. That's such a great opportunity. I would think if you [00:22:00] do have wiggle room or flexibility in your schedule to structure it that way. And I'm sure like with anything else, it's just trial and error and seeing, like looking at your own ratio, your own schedule within your program, and maybe trying one of these things and seeing what happens, taking that data, presenting it to admin, going from there.

Meghan: And I think to your point, it doesn't happen overnight. This was like, yeah, a 10 year trial and error period. So I think, for anyone who's listening and wants to try these things, I wouldn't do it all at once, because it took a lot of work and you want it to be successful, because that's how you get the buy in from administration, from gen ed, from the related arts teachers, right? If you were to do all these things, and they're kind of crash and fail, no one's going to want to be a part of it.

I think the biggest thing is that we have to advocate for our students and for our learners. I don't take no for an answer. I take maybe not yet, but I'm always trying to think of ways that we can have our students participate and sometimes you have to really think outside the box.

So, Megan, where can our listeners find you for more [00:23:00] information on any kind of this, whether it's 

Caitlin: reverse inclusion, behavior training, I think you do parent and school training. So talk to us a little bit about that. 

Meghan: So myself and my colleague Jen Stracodonio during COVID, when all things started, we started our own company called Moms Managing Behavior. That was kind of our way to give strategies to parents and school districts virtually. And since then we've grown and tried to reach out more to districts and work on providing professional development to districts, go in and talk about these things and the challenges we've had and how to get these types of programs up and running. We also provide parent trainings to parents, whether it's virtually or in person or workshops, school districts can hire us to do the parent trainings for them in a workshop style environment. So the name of our company is Moms Managing Behavior. We're both moms, and I think everyone needs a little bit of management.

Audra: And you manage behavior. 

Meghan: Our website is momsmanagingbehavior. com, and you can find us on Instagram or Facebook at Moms Managing [00:24:00] Behavior. 

Audra: That's amazing. We will put all your information in the show notes. Thank you so much. That was fantastic what you're doing. And I'm sure all the all the kids thank you and all the parents thank you and your whole community thanks you because you're making a difference, not just in your school, but in your whole community.

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