When I speak about inclusion in Montessori, I do not speak about it as a modern idea placed on top of the method. I speak about it as a return to one of the deepest roots of Montessori’s work: the belief that the child must be observed before being judged, and that the adult must be prepared before claiming to know what the child can or cannot do. The conversation about learning differences in Montessori often becomes too simple. Some say that the first Children’s House was not created for children with disabilities. Historically, that statement is true in one sense. The Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo was not established as a special education school. It was born within a social reform project for young children living in a working-class community in Rome. But if we stop there, we risk separating the Children’s House from the earlier work that formed Montessori’s scientific and pedagogical vision. Maria Montessori did not arrive in San Lorenzo with an empty method. Before the first Children’s House opened in 1907, Montessori had already studied medicine, anthropology, experimental psychology, and pedagogy. She had also worked with children who, in the medical language of her time, were called “deficient,” “abnormal,” or “phrenasthenic.” Today, we would use more respectful and accurate language: children with developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, learning differences, and neurodevelopmental needs. The language has changed, and it should change, but the historical fact remains important. Montessori’s method was shaped, in part, by children who had been excluded from ordinary education. In The Montessori Method, Montessori explains that the educational system used in the Children’s Houses “sprang from preceding pedagogical experiences with abnormal children” (Montessori, 1912, p. 31). She also writes that “mental deficiency presented chiefly a pedagogical, rather than mainly a medical, problem” (Montessori, 1912, p. 32). These statements matter because Montessori was not denying disability, nor was she romanticizing the child’s needs. She was challenging the assumption that the child’s difficulty belonged only inside the child. She was asking educators to look also at the method, the adult, the environment, and the opportunities for development. This is where Montessori’s connection to Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard and Édouard Séguin becomes essential. Montessori studied their work carefully. Itard’s work with sensory education and observation, and Séguin’s physiological method, helped Montessori understand that education could begin through the body, the senses, movement, and concrete experience. Séguin’s work was especially important because he challenged the idea that children with intellectual disabilities were unreachable. His method began where the child was, not where the adult wished the child would be. Séguin’s own words help us understand this foundation. In Idiocy: And Its Treatment by the Physiological Method, he argued that the educational treatment of the child must begin from the child’s present point of development. This idea is profoundly connected to the Montessori principle of following the child. It is also profoundly connected to inclusion. The adult does not begin with a fixed program and force the child into it. The adult begins by studying the child’s development and preparing the next possible step. Montessori took this inheritance and transformed it. She did not simply apply Séguin’s work mechanically. She brought it into a larger vision of education, freedom, observation, independence, and human development. In The Montessori Method, she explains that her work in the Children’s Houses represented trials made with methods already used with children then called “deficients, ” while also clarifying that her work was not merely a direct application of Séguin. This nuance matters. The Orthophrenic School and the Children’s House were not the same context, but they were not unrelated. The roots of Montessori education include the study of children who had been misunderstood, underestimated, and excluded. Paola Trabalzini’s historical work in Maria Montessori Through the Seasons of the “Method” helps us hold this nuance with greater accuracy. Trabalzini places Montessori’s early work with children then called “phrenasthenic” within the formation of her scientific pedagogy. She also explains that when Montessori accepted the work in San Lorenzo, she brought with her the hypothesis of trying, with so-called “normal” children, the sensorial materials she had already used with children considered mentally deficient in the language of that time. This does not mean the Children’s House was a special education classroom. It means the method Montessori brought into the Children’s House had already been shaped by children who did not fit the expectations of traditional schooling. For me, this is one of the strongest foundations for understanding Montessori inclusion. Inclusion is not simply about placing a child in a classroom. Inclusion is not pretending that every environment can meet every need without support, training, collaboration, staffing, or adjustment. That would be irresponsible. But exclusion based on labels, without deep observation and without examining the adult and the environment, is also not Montessori. Montessori warned us about the danger of lowered expectations. In The Montessori Method, she wrote that when an educator accepts the idea that they are educating an “inferior personality, ” “for that very reason he does not succeed” (Montessori, 1912, p. 37). This is one of the most important sentences for the work I do today. Before a child is limited by a diagnosis, a behavior, or a difficulty, the child may already be limited by what the adult has decided is possible. This is not a small problem. It is one of the deepest barriers to true inclusion. This is why my work always returns to the prepared adult. The prepared adult is not simply the adult who knows the lessons or can present the materials correctly. The prepared adult is the person willing to examine assumptions, reactions, expectations, and the state of the nervous system. When an adult is dysregulated, the adult does not observe clearly. The adult reacts. The adult controls. The adult may interpret sensory overwhelm as defiance, executive function difficulty as laziness, fear as manipulation, or communication differences as disrespect. In those moments, the child is no longer being observed. The child is being interpreted through the adult’s activation. Montessori may not have used today’s language of nervous system regulation, sensory processing, trauma, or executive functioning, but she understood that the adult’s inner preparation mattered. In The Discovery of the Child, she writes about the spiritual preparation of the teacher and the need for the adult to remove pride and anger in order to see the child more clearly. In the chapter where she reflects on the adult’s inner obstacles, Montessori’s language is strong because she understood that the adult can become the greatest barrier to the child’s development. Today, we can understand that through both Montessori philosophy and current knowledge about the nervous system. A dysregulated adult does not create safety. A reactive adult does not create freedom. An unprepared adult may turn the Montessori environment into a place of compliance rather than development. This is also why Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook is important for this conversation. Montessori describes the Children’s House as “the environment which is offered to the child that he may be given the opportunity of developing his activities” (Montessori, 1914, p. 15). She adds that this kind of school “is not of a fixed type, ” but may vary according to the resources and opportunities of the environment (Montessori, 1914, p. 15). She then says that it “ought to be a real house” (Montessori, 1914, p. 15), a place where children are not merely placed inside an adult institution, but where the environment is adapted to their life, movement, independence, and development. That statement matters for inclusion because it reminds us that Montessori is not a fixed aesthetic. It is not only a shelf, a rug, or a perfect room. The Children’s House is an environment prepared for life. If the environment is truly prepared for the child, then we must ask whether it responds to the child’s actual developmental needs, not just to an idealized image of the Montessori child. A real house must be livable for the children who are actually there. In the same handbook, Montessori explains that the child’s development involves both motor and sensory functions. Through motor functions, the child secures balance, learns to walk, and coordinates movement. Through sensory functions, the child receives impressions from the environment and builds the foundations of intelligence through observation, comparison, and judgment. This is where Montessori’s roots in Séguin’s work are still visible. Development is not only intellectual. It begins in the body. It begins through movement and through the senses. It begins through the child’s interaction with a prepared environment. This connection is deeply aligned with what I see in my work with neurodivergent children and Montessori educators today. A child’s behavior is often communication from the nervous system. Movement, sensory seeking, avoidance, impulsivity, shutdown, difficulty with transitions, or emotional intensity are not signs that the child does not belong. They are information. They tell us something about the child’s regulation, development, environment, and support needs. The prepared adult must learn to read that information without immediately turning it into judgment. This does not mean the adult ignores limits, safety, or the needs of the group. Montessori inclusion is not permissiveness. It is not the absence of structure. It is the presence of deeper preparation. It asks the adult to understand the difference between a child who is refusing and a child who is unable in that moment. It asks the adult to notice when the environment is too loud, too fast, too abstract, too socially demanding, or too dependent on executive functioning skills the child has not yet developed. It asks the adult to collaborate with families and specialists without seeing that collaboration as a failure of Montessori. Responsible inclusion requires humility. It requires us to admit that some children need support beyond what a classroom currently has. It requires school leaders to be honest about training, staffing, expectations, and resources. But it also requires us to resist the temptation to protect the method by excluding the child too quickly. If Montessori’s own method was shaped by children who were considered outside the reach of ordinary education, then we should be very careful when we use Montessori language to decide who belongs. The deeper meaning of inclusion is not that every placement is automatically right. The deeper meaning of inclusion is that every child deserves to be studied with dignity before decisions are made about what is possible. Inclusion asks us to observe the child, prepare the environment, prepare the adult, and examine the systems around the child. It asks us to see development as dynamic, not fixed. It asks us to remember that the child’s difficulty may reveal not only the child’s need, but also the adult’s need for more preparation. This is why I say that Montessori inclusion begins with the prepared adult. The adult is not only managing behavior. The adult is preparing conditions for development. The adult is learning to regulate, to observe, to adapt, to collaborate, and to protect the dignity of the child without denying the reality of the child’s needs. In this sense, inclusion is not outside Montessori. Inclusion is what happens when we take Montessori seriously enough to apply it to the child who does not make our work easy. Montessori’s roots do not give us simple answers, but they do give us a serious responsibility. They remind us that the method grew from scientific observation, from work with children who had been excluded, from the education of the senses and movement, and from the transformation of the adult. If we want to speak about Montessori and learning differences today, we must speak with that history in mind. The question is not whether inclusion belongs in Montessori. The deeper question is whether we are prepared enough, as adults and as institutions, to practice Montessori with the children who require us to observe more carefully, prepare more deeply, and transform ourselves more honestly. References Itard, J. M. G. (1962). The wild boy of Aveyron (G. Humphrey & M. Humphrey, Trans.). Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Original work published 1801) Montessori, M. (1912). The Montessori method: Scientific pedagogy as applied to child education in “The Children’s Houses” (A. E. George, Trans.). Frederick A. Stokes Company. (Original work published 1909) Montessori, M. (1914). Dr. Montessori’s own handbook. Frederick A. Stokes Company. Montessori, M. (1967). The discovery of the child (M. J. Costelloe, Trans.). Ballantine Books. (Original work published 1948) Séguin, E. (1866). Idiocy: And its treatment by the physiological method. William Wood & Company. Trabalzini, P. (2011). Maria Montessori through the seasons of the “method.” The NAMTA Journal, 36(2). North American Montessori Teachers’ Association.

When I speak about inclusion in Montessori, I do not speak about it as a modern idea placed on top of the method. I speak about it as a return to one of the deepest roots of Montessori’s work: the belief that the child must be observed before being judged, and that the adult must be prepared before claiming to know what the child can or cannot do. The conversation about learning differences in Montessori often becomes too simple. Some say that the first Children’s House was not created for children with disabilities. Historically, that statement is true in one sense. The Casa dei Bambini in San Lorenzo was not established as a special education school. It was born within a social reform project for young children living in a working-class community in Rome. But if we stop there, we risk separating the Children’s House from the earlier work that formed Montessori’s scientific and pedagogical vision. Maria Montessori did not arrive in San Lorenzo with an empty method. Before the first Children’s House opened in 1907, Montessori had already studied medicine, anthropology, experimental psychology, and pedagogy. She had also worked with children who, in the medical language of her time, were called “deficient,” “abnormal,” or “phrenasthenic.” Today, we would use more respectful and accurate language: children with developmental disabilities, intellectual disabilities, learning differences, and neurodevelopmental needs. The language has changed, and it should change, but the historical fact remains important. Montessori’s method was shaped, in part, by children who had been excluded from ordinary education. In The Montessori Method, Montessori explains that the educational system used in the Children’s Houses “sprang from preceding pedagogical experiences with abnormal children” (Montessori, 1912, p. 31). She also writes that “mental deficiency presented chiefly a pedagogical, rather than mainly a medical, problem” (Montessori, 1912, p. 32). These statements matter because Montessori was not denying disability, nor was she romanticizing the child’s needs. She was challenging the assumption that the child’s difficulty belonged only inside the child. She was asking educators to look also at the method, the adult, the environment, and the opportunities for development. This is where Montessori’s connection to Jean-Marc Gaspard Itard and Édouard Séguin becomes essential. Montessori studied their work carefully. Itard’s work with sensory education and observation, and Séguin’s physiological method, helped Montessori understand that education could begin through the body, the senses, movement, and concrete experience. Séguin’s work was especially important because he challenged the idea that children with intellectual disabilities were unreachable. His method began where the child was, not where the adult wished the child would be. Séguin’s own words help us understand this foundation. In Idiocy: And Its Treatment by the Physiological Method, he argued that the educational treatment of the child must begin from the child’s present point of development. This idea is profoundly connected to the Montessori principle of following the child. It is also profoundly connected to inclusion. The adult does not begin with a fixed program and force the child into it. The adult begins by studying the child’s development and preparing the next possible step. Montessori took this inheritance and transformed it. She did not simply apply Séguin’s work mechanically. She brought it into a larger vision of education, freedom, observation, independence, and human development. In The Montessori Method, she explains that her work in the Children’s Houses represented trials made with methods already used with children then called “deficients, ” while also clarifying that her work was not merely a direct application of Séguin. This nuance matters. The Orthophrenic School and the Children’s House were not the same context, but they were not unrelated. The roots of Montessori education include the study of children who had been misunderstood, underestimated, and excluded. Paola Trabalzini’s historical work in Maria Montessori Through the Seasons of the “Method” helps us hold this nuance with greater accuracy. Trabalzini places Montessori’s early work with children then called “phrenasthenic” within the formation of her scientific pedagogy. She also explains that when Montessori accepted the work in San Lorenzo, she brought with her the hypothesis of trying, with so-called “normal” children, the sensorial materials she had already used with children considered mentally deficient in the language of that time. This does not mean the Children’s House was a special education classroom. It means the method Montessori brought into the Children’s House had already been shaped by children who did not fit the expectations of traditional schooling. For me, this is one of the strongest foundations for understanding Montessori inclusion. Inclusion is not simply about placing a child in a classroom. Inclusion is not pretending that every environment can meet every need without support, training, collaboration, staffing, or adjustment. That would be irresponsible. But exclusion based on labels, without deep observation and without examining the adult and the environment, is also not Montessori. Montessori warned us about the danger of lowered expectations. In The Montessori Method, she wrote that when an educator accepts the idea that they are educating an “inferior personality, ” “for that very reason he does not succeed” (Montessori, 1912, p. 37). This is one of the most important sentences for the work I do today. Before a child is limited by a diagnosis, a behavior, or a difficulty, the child may already be limited by what the adult has decided is possible. This is not a small problem. It is one of the deepest barriers to true inclusion. This is why my work always returns to the prepared adult. The prepared adult is not simply the adult who knows the lessons or can present the materials correctly. The prepared adult is the person willing to examine assumptions, reactions, expectations, and the state of the nervous system. When an adult is dysregulated, the adult does not observe clearly. The adult reacts. The adult controls. The adult may interpret sensory overwhelm as defiance, executive function difficulty as laziness, fear as manipulation, or communication differences as disrespect. In those moments, the child is no longer being observed. The child is being interpreted through the adult’s activation. Montessori may not have used today’s language of nervous system regulation, sensory processing, trauma, or executive functioning, but she understood that the adult’s inner preparation mattered. In The Discovery of the Child, she writes about the spiritual preparation of the teacher and the need for the adult to remove pride and anger in order to see the child more clearly. In the chapter where she reflects on the adult’s inner obstacles, Montessori’s language is strong because she understood that the adult can become the greatest barrier to the child’s development. Today, we can understand that through both Montessori philosophy and current knowledge about the nervous system. A dysregulated adult does not create safety. A reactive adult does not create freedom. An unprepared adult may turn the Montessori environment into a place of compliance rather than development. This is also why Dr. Montessori’s Own Handbook is important for this conversation. Montessori describes the Children’s House as “the environment which is offered to the child that he may be given the opportunity of developing his activities” (Montessori, 1914, p. 15). She adds that this kind of school “is not of a fixed type, ” but may vary according to the resources and opportunities of the environment (Montessori, 1914, p. 15). She then says that it “ought to be a real house” (Montessori, 1914, p. 15), a place where children are not merely placed inside an adult institution, but where the environment is adapted to their life, movement, independence, and development. That statement matters for inclusion because it reminds us that Montessori is not a fixed aesthetic. It is not only a shelf, a rug, or a perfect room. The Children’s House is an environment prepared for life. If the environment is truly prepared for the child, then we must ask whether it responds to the child’s actual developmental needs, not just to an idealized image of the Montessori child. A real house must be livable for the children who are actually there. In the same handbook, Montessori explains that the child’s development involves both motor and sensory functions. Through motor functions, the child secures balance, learns to walk, and coordinates movement. Through sensory functions, the child receives impressions from the environment and builds the foundations of intelligence through observation, comparison, and judgment. This is where Montessori’s roots in Séguin’s work are still visible. Development is not only intellectual. It begins in the body. It begins through movement and through the senses. It begins through the child’s interaction with a prepared environment. This connection is deeply aligned with what I see in my work with neurodivergent children and Montessori educators today. A child’s behavior is often communication from the nervous system. Movement, sensory seeking, avoidance, impulsivity, shutdown, difficulty with transitions, or emotional intensity are not signs that the child does not belong. They are information. They tell us something about the child’s regulation, development, environment, and support needs. The prepared adult must learn to read that information without immediately turning it into judgment. This does not mean the adult ignores limits, safety, or the needs of the group. Montessori inclusion is not permissiveness. It is not the absence of structure. It is the presence of deeper preparation. It asks the adult to understand the difference between a child who is refusing and a child who is unable in that moment. It asks the adult to notice when the environment is too loud, too fast, too abstract, too socially demanding, or too dependent on executive functioning skills the child has not yet developed. It asks the adult to collaborate with families and specialists without seeing that collaboration as a failure of Montessori. Responsible inclusion requires humility. It requires us to admit that some children need support beyond what a classroom currently has. It requires school leaders to be honest about training, staffing, expectations, and resources. But it also requires us to resist the temptation to protect the method by excluding the child too quickly. If Montessori’s own method was shaped by children who were considered outside the reach of ordinary education, then we should be very careful when we use Montessori language to decide who belongs. The deeper meaning of inclusion is not that every placement is automatically right. The deeper meaning of inclusion is that every child deserves to be studied with dignity before decisions are made about what is possible. Inclusion asks us to observe the child, prepare the environment, prepare the adult, and examine the systems around the child. It asks us to see development as dynamic, not fixed. It asks us to remember that the child’s difficulty may reveal not only the child’s need, but also the adult’s need for more preparation. This is why I say that Montessori inclusion begins with the prepared adult. The adult is not only managing behavior. The adult is preparing conditions for development. The adult is learning to regulate, to observe, to adapt, to collaborate, and to protect the dignity of the child without denying the reality of the child’s needs. In this sense, inclusion is not outside Montessori. Inclusion is what happens when we take Montessori seriously enough to apply it to the child who does not make our work easy. Montessori’s roots do not give us simple answers, but they do give us a serious responsibility. They remind us that the method grew from scientific observation, from work with children who had been excluded, from the education of the senses and movement, and from the transformation of the adult. If we want to speak about Montessori and learning differences today, we must speak with that history in mind. The question is not whether inclusion belongs in Montessori. The deeper question is whether we are prepared enough, as adults and as institutions, to practice Montessori with the children who require us to observe more carefully, prepare more deeply, and transform ourselves more honestly. References Itard, J. M. G. (1962). The wild boy of Aveyron (G. Humphrey & M. Humphrey, Trans.). Appleton-Century-Crofts. (Original work published 1801) Montessori, M. (1912). The Montessori method: Scientific pedagogy as applied to child education in “The Children’s Houses” (A. E. George, Trans.). Frederick A. Stokes Company. (Original work published 1909) Montessori, M. (1914). Dr. Montessori’s own handbook. Frederick A. Stokes Company. Montessori, M. (1967). The discovery of the child (M. J. Costelloe, Trans.). Ballantine Books. (Original work published 1948) Séguin, E. (1866). Idiocy: And its treatment by the physiological method. William Wood & Company. Trabalzini, P. (2011). Maria Montessori through the seasons of the “method.” The NAMTA Journal, 36(2). North American Montessori Teachers’ Association.