International Review of Research in Developmental Disabilities, Volume 52 - Chapter 5: The Promise and Practice of Peer Support Arrangements for Students with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities

This article addresses peer support arrangements as a promising and practical approach for supporting students with severe disabilities to access the myriad social and learning opportunities available within inclusive secondary school classrooms. My aim is to share some of what my colleagues and I have learned through the process of designing, delivering, and evaluating an intervention approach marked both by its efficacy and its feasibility. I begin by providing some context on secondary schooling to highlight both the complexities of supporting inclusive educational experiences and the enduring need for alternative support models. I then describe peer support arrangements and review research addressing the effectiveness of this intervention approach. Discussion then turns to the various ways in which core components of this intervention approach have evolved and been applied to support students. I conclude with recommendations for future research aimed at deepening our understanding of the application and impact of these interventions to support inclusive schooling for students with severe disabilities.