Abstract:

The pre-school education of children with special needs is necessary for their social acceptance and integration to the society. This necessity is determined by the laws in Turkey and its continuity is based upon the integration. This study aims at describing the opinions of pre-school teachers on the pre-school education of children with special needs through integration. The data were collected through semi-structured interviews. Qualitative data were analyzed descriptively. Thirty female preschool teachers who were working for the Ministry of National Education, in a province center in Middle Anatolia Region during the academic year of 2002-2003 participated in the study. All the participants were teachers who had students with special needs. According to the findings, all the teachers in the study think that children with special needs should have pre-school education. Most of the teachers indicated that pre-school education should be given through integration for children with special needs. Furthermore, the teachers in this study expressed that they were not qualified on integration and the working conditions were insufficient.

Keywords: