The Centre for Inclusive Education An inclusive classroom benefits everyone. When everyone is included, everyone learns. Inclusive education values everyone's ideas.
Our Team Members
 Dr. Jacqueline Specht   Dr. Alan Edmunds   Dr. Elizabeth Nowicki 
 Grace Howell   Michelle Pompeo   Gabrielle Young 
 Graduate Students' Research 

Team Member: Dr. Alan Edmunds

Alan Edmunds Research Associate (Sabbatical, 2008)
Phone: 519-661-2111 ext. 88622
Email: aedmunds@uwo.ca

For 20 years, Dr. Edmunds has worked as a special education teacher, a school psychologist, a private educational consultant, and as a faculty member at four different Canadian universities. His interests have always been in providing optimum learning environments for all individuals with exceptional learning needs, including adults and those who are highly gifted. He teaches educational psychology and special education at the undergraduate level and specialty courses in learning disabilities, giftedness, and cognition/learning at the Master's and PhD levels. He is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education.

Research Interests

Alan's two primary research interests are; 1) understanding the thinking/learning of highly gifted individuals and individuals with LD, and 2) developing classroom interventions to enhance their learning. His research includes examining the preparedness of regular classroom teachers for inclusive classrooms, designing cognitive learning strategies for individuals with LD, and examining the writing processes of a precocious child writer.

Current Projects

Continuing his research on the use of Cognitive Credit Cards, Dr. Edmunds is investigating their use in helping upper elementary school children develop more effective organizational skills. Click Here for a Complete Project Description.

Dr. Edmunds is also currently examining the talents of an exceptional child writer, age 10, whose precocity has been evident since age 5. Children who are precocious in closed systems like math and music are rare, but being profoundly gifted in creative writing, an open symbol system, is even rarer. This research also examines the environmental influences that affect this child's writing. Click Here for a Complete Project Description.

Selected Publications

Brock, S., & Edmunds, A. L. (in press). Parental involvement: Barriers and opportunities. The Journal of Educational Administration and Foundations, 19(2).
Edmunds, A. L. (in press). Full inclusion since 1996: How are Nova Scotia schools doing? In J. Visser (Ed.), Inclusion, behavior and special education: Issues in the new millennium. Birmingham: QEd Publishers.
Edmunds, A. L. & Edmunds, G. A. (2007). Special education in Canada. McGraw-Hill Ryerson: Toronto, ON.
Edmunds, A. L. & Young, D. (2007). The evolution of special education policy in Ontario: 1968 to present. In T. G. Ryan, (Ed.), The reflexive special educator. Calgary, AB: Detselig.
Edmunds, A. & Edmunds, G. (2005). Sensitivity: A double edge sword for the pre-adolescent and adolescent gifted child. Roeper Review, 27(2), 69-77.
Edmunds, A. L. & Noel, K. A. (2003a). Literary precocity: An exceptional case among exceptional cases. Roeper Review, 25(4), 185-194.
Edmunds, A. L. (2003c). Preparing Canadian teachers for inclusion. Exceptionality Education Canada, 13(1), 5-6.
Johnson, F. & Edmunds, A. (2006). From chaos to control: Understanding and responding to the behavior of children with exceptionalities. London, ON: Althouse Press, University of Western Ontario.
Macmillan, R., Meyer, M., Edmunds, A., Edmunds, G. & Feltmate, C. (2002). A survey of the impact of government funding cuts on inclusion: Report to the NSTU. Halifox, NS: Nova Scotia Teachers' Union.
Full Report Executive Summary
Reports are in PDF Format
Noel, K. & Edmunds, A. L. (2007). Constructing a synthetic-analytic framework for precocious writing. Roeper Review 29(2), 125-131.

Papers Presented at Scholarly Gatherings (*refereed)

*Noel. K. & Edmunds, A. L. (2006, April). A synthetic-analytic framework for the analysis of precocious writing. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), San Francisco, CA.
*Williams. A., Specht, J., & Edmunds, A. (2006, May). Attitudes towards the inclusion of exceptional students: A comparison between preservice teachers and preservice educational assistants. Presented at the annual meeting of the Canadian Society for Studies in Education (CSSE), Toronto, ON.
*Williams, A., Specht, J., & Edmunds, A. (2006, April) Preservice teachers' attitudes towards inclusion. Presented at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), San Francisco, CA.