In the process of children's development, elementary school entrance represents an important but difficult turning point for both children themselves and their families. In particular, if the child has disability, not only the child but also his/her f...
In the process of children's development, elementary school entrance represents an important but difficult turning point for both children themselves and their families. In particular, if the child has disability, not only the child but also his/her family would be stressed more with a higher level of anxiety. So, in order to help the children with disability adapt themselves effectively to the elementary school environment, it is required to plan and apply a transition strategy and process effectively. A strategy teaching children about the useful skills of handling a new environment and every-day activities may well help the children to feel comfortable in the unfamiliar environment. The skills required to be adapted to a new environment are diversified. However, since it is difficult to have the children learned about every necessary skill, it is important to inform them of the skills which should be learned above all.
With such conceptions in mind, this study was aimed at surveying how teachers would perceive the importance of the skills required for children with disability to enter normal elementary school. To this end, the researcher sampled 690 general education teachers, special education teachers and early childhood education teachers and distributed a questionnaire to them; 376 copies of the questionnaire were returned.
The collected data were analyzed for means and standard deviations per area as well as for priorities among them. On the other hand, the collected data were subject to one-way ANOVA and Scheffe post hoc test.
The results of this study can be summarized as follows;
1. The top 5 skills perceived important by three groups of teachers - general education, special education and early childhood education teachers - required for children with disability to enter normal elementary school were more or less similar. The most important skill perceived by them was "Exhibit self-control regarding aggressive behaviors".
2. Three groups of teachers almost agreed to importance of each area; it was found that most of them perceived more important for social behavior skills and self-management skills than other ones.
3. While early childhood education teachers perceived that self-management skill was more important for children with disability to enter regular elementary school, general education teachers felt important for learning skill.
Based on the above results, the skills perceived highly important by teachers for children with disability to enter normal elementary school may be a profile of the skills desirable also for normal children's elementary school entrance. Such a profile may be useful to the early childhood education teachers who are obliged to have the pre-school children prepared for elementary education and helpful, too, for the general education teachers who need to counsel parents with children with disability aged for elementary education. On the other hand, the overall agreement to the profile of skills among three groups of teachers suggests may be a desirable phenomenon in that educational experts should communicate and cooperate with each other to help children with disability for their successful transition, while suggesting that a list of skills required for being prepared for elementary school entrance can be determined in common regardless of groups. Meanwhile, general education teachers perceived more important for learning skill than other two sub-areas, which suggests that the general perception of importance of learning skill is reflected in education for children with disability.