Abstract:

Early childhood special education (ECSE) is support services including critical implementations in issues like increasing the quality of life of children with multiple disabilities and their families, providing them with education services and decreasing the negative effects of disabilities and developmental delays (Howard, Williams and Lepper, 2010). Even though early childhood special education, the development and education of these children, and increasing the quality of life of families are included in legal regulations, many difficulties are encountered in their implementation. This study aims to determine the difficulties encountered by the mothers having children with multiple disabilities during early childhood special education services and suggest solutions for the results. Data were obtained through semi-structured interview technique from qualitative research methods. The study included 6 mothers living in Ankara Province and having children with multiple disabilities whose ages ranged between 1 and 7 years. Data were analyzed by inductive analysis technique. The study found that the mothers felt shocked upon learning the disabilities of their children, the biggest supporters of the mothers when raising their children were their own mothers, they had negative responses from their neighborhood and relatives upon sending their children to school and special education institutions, children with multiple disabilities had difficulties in fulfilling social skills, communicative skills and self care skills in early childhood period and children had difficulties in getting education in classes applying mainstreaming implementations.

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