Meghan Healy

Dr. David Stringham

MUS150
March 23, 2015

For this assignment, I was drawn to the article entitled, On-Task Participation of
Typical Students close to and away from Classmates with Disabilities in an Elementary
Music Classroom, written by Judith A. Jellison, and was published in the Journal of
Research in Music Education in 2002. I chose to read and reflect upon this article because
I plan on educating elementary-age students throughout my career. Also, the elementary
school that I attended from kindergarten through eighth grade housed one of the largest
special education programs in the city of Chicago, so typical students were often placed
in environments, specifically extra-curricular classes like art, physical education, or
music, with students with special needs or disabilities. I felt that this article, while being
from an academic and musical perspective, and I also having first-hand accounts of an
environment as discussed in this experiment, would provide me with thorough insight
and knowledge that would benefit my future music teaching procedures, as well as
educating the students in the essential social skill of inclusion.
This article, On-Task Participation of Typical Students close to and away from
Classmates with Disabilities in an Elementary Music Classroom, provides results to a
study that focuses on the on-task and off-task behavior of students in relationship with
their proximity to a peer with severe or mild disabilities. The results to this study show
that interactions between typical students and students with disabilities were most

commonly affectionate and kind, yet off-task. This can be interpreted as positive, yet also
hinder the students potential to be engaged in the material.