The assessment of the ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) classrooms in early children’s education: the voice of teachers and families

It is well known that progress towards more inclusive cultures, policies and practices is a complex and dilemmatic process. The obstacles increase when dealing with students with greater difficulties as is the case of Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The Community of Madrid, like other Autonomous Communities, has developed a preferential schooling program for these students, in an attempt to include students with ASD, which until now was located in specific centers, in ordinary educational centers. The research developed aims to identify and analyze the concretion of the dimensions of inclusion in Early Childhood Education (Booth and Ainscow, 2006) within the framework of the educational proposal developed by these centers. For this, a necessary strategy is to keep in mind “the voices” (Susinos and Ceballos, 2012) of families and teachers as an expression of their desires and expectations, and also of their achievements, difficulties and proposals for improvement that underlie the work they perform daily. The fact of knowing the perception by families and teachers in relation to the characteristics that define inclusion in the centers, the importance of a pedagogical leadership in the management teams, teacher’s high commitment and satisfaction with the work they develop, as well as the high rates in the participation of families in the centers are some of the results that are shown in the article as key indicators to favor the processes of educational inclusion