An intervention strategy to enhance spelling performance and social interaction and to decrease inappropriate behaviours of students with mild disabilities and typical peers in an inclusive instructional setting Georgios D. Sideridis American College of Thessaloniki Cheryl A. Utley Juniper Gardens Children's Project, University of Kansas Charles R. Greenwood Juniper Gardens Children's Project University of Kansas Harriett Dawson Juniper Gardens Children's Project, University of Kansas Joseph Delquadri Juniper Gardens Children's Project, University of Kansas Penny Palmer Juniper Gardens Children's Project, University of Kansas U ntil recently, little emphasis has been placed on the social functioning of students with mild disabilities (Gresham, 1992; Haring, 1993; Kopp et al., 1992; La Greca and Vaughn, 1992), and lack of social skills, like learn- ing problems, may be a cause of placement into special education pro- grammes (Coleman and Minnett, 1993; Gresham and Elliott, 1989a, b; Shores et al., 1992). Thus examining how the social ecology functions to sup- port peer social behaviour within the regular education classroom is impor- tant, especially because it has been suggested that integrated, rather than segregated, settings may offer greater social opportunity and normalcy to stu- dents with mild disabilities (Putnam, 1993; Snell and Eichner, 1989). Some have argued that students with mild disabilities should be given opportuni- ties to interact with their typical peers in regular classroom settings because positive social interaction may lead to friendships and other social relations (Haring, 1993; Snell and Eichner, 1989). does exist that typical children on average: (1) are more socially competent than their peers with mild disabilities (Landau and Moore, 1991; McKinney et al., 1993; Stone and La Greca, 1990; Vaughn and Lancelotta, 1990; Vaughn et al., 1993), (2) prefer to interact with other typical children as opposed to children with mild disabilities (Guralnick, 1980; Osguthorpe et al., 1985; Roberts et al., 1991), and (3) do not socially accept children with disabilities (Landau and Moore, 1991; Milich et al., 1992; Roberts and Zubrick, 1993). With regard to students with mild disabilities, they tend to stay alone and engage in little social play as compared with their typical peers (Kopp et al., 1992; Roberts et al., 1991; Williams and Asher, 1992). For example, Merrell et al. (1992) examined the social competence of 135 students with learning disabilities (LD), 109 students having Educable Men- tal Retardation (EMR), 114 students having Behavioural Disorders (BD), 100 low-achieving students, and 108 average, regular education peers based on 109