Preschool children in need of special support: prevalence of traditional disability categories and functional difficulties

Abstract

Undiagnosed and diagnosed children share the same type of difficulties. Thus, in estimating the prevalence of children in need of special support in a preschool context, traditional disability categories capture only a small proportion of the children experiencing difficulties. Therefore, a functional approach in studies of children in need of special support is recommended.

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) for preschool children—a Swedish validation

“…Studying individual behaviours gives a more detailed picture, and presents an opportunity to identify children at risk for future mental health problems (6) . Earlier research has also identified a positive relationship between satisfactory functioning and children´s engagement (7) .…”

ICF-CY as a Framework for Understanding Child Engagement in Preschool

“…Children's right to support is further reinforced in the revised version of the national preschool curriculum (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2010). However, as mentioned earlier, actually not all of them do receive enough support to promote engagement in preschool (Lillvist and Granlund, 2010;Lundqvist et al, 2016;Almqvist et al, 2018). In addition, the Swedish Schools Inspectorate (Skolinspektionen, 2017) reported that about 2/3 of inspected preschools had shortcomings in their work related to special support.…”

“…Their different educational and professional backgrounds and focus tend to interfere when planning and implementing support. Moreover, studies (Lillvist and Granlund, 2010;Almqvist et al, 2018) have found that children in need of special support without a formal identification of the needs (i.e., a medical diagnosis) were provided with support only by initiatives from the preschool staff. Children that were formally identified, on the other hand, were provided with support from professionals in the preschool support team, child healthcare, or habilitation team.…”

“…Swedish preschool (Swedish National Agency for Education, 2010) advocates an inclusive approach in which all children, with and without need of special support, are included together with peers in preschool groups. Although Swedish children in need of special support due to physical, psychological, health-related, socioeconomic, or other factors have the legal right to receive special support (SFS, 2010), several studies have shown that the majority of them do not receive additional support for their everyday functioning, such as engagement in preschool activities (Lillvist and Granlund, 2010;Lundqvist et al, 2016;Almqvist et al, 2018). To identify opportunities and barriers for child engagement in preschool activities, it is important that the team around the child, i.e., preschool teachers, childminders, other professionals, and parents, share a common language related to children's everyday functioning, where engagement is one aspect.…”

“…In other words, children displaying low levels of engagement, such as inattention toward learning activities in preschool, are at risk for learning difficulties and impaired academic achievement over time (Metcalfe et al, 2013). Even if norm-referenced measures and formal diagnoses traditionally are used to identify children in need of special support (Simeonsson, 2006;Lillvist, 2010;Lillvist and Granlund, 2010;Drabble, 2013), an alternative way to identify those children is to look at their functioning (e.g., engagement) in everyday life. Difficulties in functioning in terms of engagement, at its own or together with a diagnosis, may be a sign of a need for special support.…”