Newly arrived children with special educational needs in preschool : Preschool teachers’experiences

The purpose of this study is to generate further knowledge about preschool teachers' work with newly arrived children who are in need of special support. Presently, there is a small amount of research in this subject and therefore I think it is a relevant topic to study. The study is conducted with semi structured interviews as a qualitative method for accessing the preschool teachers’ description of their work with newly arrived children in need of special support due to disabilities. It appears that it is a challenge for preschool staff to know what the need for special support is based on, whether due to disability or of being a refugee and the difficulties it contains. In order for preschool teachers’ to have the opportunity to use appropriate support, they need to have knowledge of the child's background and they also need to have well function communication with the parents. It is usually the staff at the preschool who first notice when a child needs supplementary support. With the preschool teachers' descriptions this study examines what perspective preschool teachers’ have on their work with newly arrived children in need of special support. This is done with help of four different special educational perspectives. This study shows that it is important to have good cooperation between preschool and parents, the parties are then dependent on well-functioning interpretive opportunities for the cooperation to function, which turns out to be varied