Elements of Successful Inclusion for School-age Children with Disabilities in Childcare Settings

Abstract

When a school-age child with disabilities is accepted into a childcare setting, it is only the first step. The sustenance of the care option depends on whether the setting makes appropriate adaptations to accommodate the child with disability in the setting. Parents face a host of challenges related to adaptations and accommodations. This study focuses on parents' perspectives related to features needed to appropriately accommodate schoolage children with disabilities in childcare and other out-of-school settings. Five focus groups attended by 29 parents and eight telephone interviews were conducted. Data were analysed qualitatively using a grounded theory approach and QSR 6, a non-statistical software package for qualitative data. The adaptations identified by parents included adaptations related to physical space and activities, adaptations focusing on socialisation with peers, supervision by staff, safety of children, parentÁprovider communication, and those focusing on the attitude and skills of childcare providers related to accommodating children with disabilities in childcare settings.

The Role of Attending Center-Based Care for Kindergarten-Aged Children with Disabilities

“…In this way, policymakers, educational practitioners, and care providers can make adjustments accordingly and target resources more carefully in CBC-K programs in order to support the unique needs of children with disabilities in early education. There has been a significant focus on what factors and contexts improve outcomes for children with disabilities in prekindergarten center-based care (e.g., Bruder, 1998;Jinnah-Ghelani & Stoneman, 2009). It might be the case that many of the protective factors and practices developed to support children with disabilities in centerbased prekindergarten care also translate to CBC-K settings.…”

“…One missing line of research has been examining heterogeneity in the differences of the effects of CBC-K. Though these aforementioned studies examined differences by gender and socioeconomic status (SES), there has been a lack of attention paid to differences how attending CBC-K might relate to outcomes for children with significant needs-and namely scant research on childcare for school-aged children with disabilities (Jinnah-Ghelani & Stoneman, 2009). This gap is critical to address, particularly given that approximately the same rising percentage of children with and without disabilities have consistently been placed in center-based care (Booth-LaForce & Kelly, 1998Bruder, 1998;Stahmer & Carter, 2005) and mothers with and without children with disabilities have been consistently entering the workforce at the same rates (Landis, 1992).…”