| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立嘉義大學 === 幼兒教育學系研究所 === 100 === This study aimed at discussing the experience of implementing inclusive education in private kindergartens, trying to understand their attitude, problems they face and their responses to the problems in implementing inclusive education. Qualitative case study approach was adopted in this study, with a private kindergarten in central Taiwan as the subject of study. The principal, four teachers and two parents of children with special needs participated in the study. The following conclusions are made through interview, observation and document compilation, etc.
1. The principal’s and teachers’ philosophy, attitude, professional knowledge and skills, manpower support, different levels of disability among children with special needs and their relevant rights, the parents’ ideas and level of cooperation are perceived to be essential factors of inclusive education. Kindergarten’s principal accepted children with special needs of various disability types, offering a manpower level of two teachers per class. Some teachers were anxious and worried at first, others were eager to take the challenge, but no one gave up in approaching the children with special needs initiatively. Parents’ misgivings against children with special needs were also cleared through parent-teacher communication. Implementing inclusive education not only benefitted the principal and teachers in the sense that it rectified their mentality, enhanced their teaching experience, sensitivity and achievement, but also helped improve the self-care ability of children with special needs in their daily life, their social interaction, and also brought their instructional and caring abilities into play. More importantly, the parents’ recognition was gained and so the benefit in student admission was seen.
2. The school faced such problems as the fact that obstacle-free environment has yet to be improved, lack of teachers and assistants, auxiliary tools, teaching materials and aids and difficulty in getting approval, and lack of administrative support such as insufficient service by professional teams and uneven time allocation, etc. Teachers found themselves deficient in the professional competence in special education, have limited and irrelevant further studies, have difficulty in adjusting the curriculum and teaching approach, and in class management. They also faced the problems of mental stress, different educational ideas of the parents of children with special needs and their failure in admitting the children’s disability.
3. The principal provided sufficient administrative support, took initiative in offering special education allowance for teachers. Teachers made good use of various resources such as the professional teams, parents and the network. They also adjusted the curriculum and teaching approach taking into consideration the children with special needs. Prejudice was eliminated; special education publicity as well as personal modeling was used to manage the class’ learning environment. Good relation with the parents was also built to make the implementation of inclusive education smoother.
Finally, a few recommendations were made based on the research result for reference for the administrative agencies of pre-school education, kindergartens, kindergarten teachers, parents of children with special needs and for future studies.
Keywords: kindergarten, inclusive education, preschool children with special needs
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