| Summary: | In today's Swedish preschool and elementary school all children are entitled to an inclusive education, where they receive the support and are presented with the educational challenges they are perceived to be in need of. To meet the needs and preconditions of all children, the educational mission of teachers today involves the apply of special educational tools, such as for example the use of visual support. The aim of this study is to analyse teachers experiences of visual support and the results they have experienced from using visual support in the learning environment. The study involves a preschool and an elementary school in a municipality in Sweden, and is based on interviews with three preschool teachers, three elementary school teachers, the headmaster of the preschool, and the headmaster of the elementary school. The results have been analyzed using sociocultural theory and a relational perspective on special education. The overall results show that teachers have used visual support for the children as a group, combined if necessary with visual support for individual children. Furthermore the results show that the use of visual support originates from a necessity to address pedagogical dilemmas and problems that have arisen within the learning environment. Both the headmasters and the teachers describe that the use of visual support has been beneficial for improving the learning environment for all of the children as well as the working environment for the teachers. In accordance with sociocultural theory and a relational perspective on special education, visual support has been used by the teachers participating in this study, as a tool to promote inclusion of all children, and as means of adapting the learning environment according to difficulties children experience within that context. The results of this study confirms that the use of visual support for children as a group can be considered a good example of what Jensen (2017) describes as reversed inclusion, meaning that the learning environment is adapted on a group level to meet the needs and preconditions of children in need of special support.
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