By Prof. Dr. Rafah Abdul-Hussein Mahdi Al-Fatlawi

Social integration is defined as a comprehensive process of various activities related to the life of a person with a disability through participation with individuals without disabilities, aiming at achieving social acceptance and fostering a sense of their remaining abilities, enhancing them for a better life. It is the process by which individuals with disabilities live safely in any place they are present, feel their existence and value as a member of their family, and avoid feeling socially isolated or alienated within the community. In other words, it aims to achieve personal and social integration, where they can live happily alongside individuals without disabilities through all educational, cultural, recreational, and sports services, among others.

Thus, most studies emphasize the need for people with special needs to acquire certain skills that help them achieve integration, develop a sense of belonging and loyalty to the community, and improve their social relationships and communication with non-disabled individuals.

Regardless of the methods of integration, whether within classroom settings or specific programs designed to achieve this goal, it has numerous and vital effects and benefits for individuals with special needs, including:

1. Social, psychological, and community integration allows people with special needs maximum participation in social and cultural life.
2. Integration contributes to treatment and prevention, as they require various types of care to gain societal respect and appreciation, enabling them to live a dignified life that we seek to provide for them.
3. Integration is a radical shift in the lives of individuals with special needs toward achieving social justice and equality in the community after the marginalization of their rights, providing them with the opportunity to live after graduation from schools or institutions, ensuring their right to work and self-reliance as much as possible.
4. Integration gives non-disabled people the chance to closely understand individuals with special needs, appreciate their problems, and assist them in facing life’s challenges.
5. Integration provides a more appropriate environment for the academic, social, and psychological growth of individuals with special needs, along with the opportunity to realize their potential, increase their motivation toward education, form healthy social relationships with others, and alter family and community attitudes.
6. Integration removes the misconceptions held by non-disabled individuals about the characteristics, potential, and abilities of their peers with special needs.
7. Long-term effects of integration on individuals with special needs help them avoid physical or mental obstacles that limit their participation in various aspects of life.
8. Integration plays a crucial role in addressing the psychological, social, and behavioral problems of people with special needs.
9. Through integration, the various talents of individuals with special needs can be discovered by teachers or responsible individuals through their interaction in diverse activities.
10. Integration reduces the intensity of feelings of stigma experienced by individuals with special needs or their families from the surrounding external community.
11. The goal of integration is to provide services to people with special needs in their natural environments, not in isolated or protected settings, after making some spatial or educational modifications in those environments to meet their academic, social, and psychological needs.