Empirical and Essay Studies

Preschool Leaders' (Directors') Opinions on the Care and Integration of Children with Special Educational Needs

Published:
2024-12-27
Authors
View
Keywords
License

Copyright (c) 2024 Dr. Mező Katalin, Juhász Anna

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

How To Cite
Selected Style: APA
Mező, K., & Juhász, A. (2024). Preschool Leaders’ (Directors’) Opinions on the Care and Integration of Children with Special Educational Needs. Special Treatment - Interdisciplinary Journal, 10(4), 69-79. https://doi.org/10.18458/KB.2024.4.69
Abstract

Providing the opportunity for integrated education has become an expectation in all public education institutions today. The success of integration primarily depends on the inclusive perspective of the institutions implementing integrated education and the institutional inclusive culture developed as a result, in which institutional leaders play a significant role. This study explored the opinions of preschool directors regarding the integration of children with special educational needs. A total of 74 preschool directors from religious, local goverment, private, and other types of institutions were contacted for the study. Data analysis was conducted both descriptively and with a mathematical statistical approach. The applied mathematical statistical methods were the chi-square test and the Kruskal-Wallis test. According to our results, the type of institution has an impact on directors' views regarding the integration of children with special educational needs. Regarding integration, 75% of directors believed that the care of children with special educational needs imposes an additional burden on preschool teachers. The results also highlighted that a lack of expertise required for integration remains a problem in preschools. The majority of institutional leaders were at least moderately satisfied with the approach of the institutions' sponsors in providing material conditions to support integration, but they were less positive about the availability of personnel resources.