Values and Needs of Children With and Without Special Educational Needs in Early School Years: A Study of Young Children’s Views on What Matters to Them

Abstract

Understanding how children experience life in educational settings should be an imperative for educational practitioners, evaluators, and researchers. Listening to children's points of views would facilitate the development of educational settings that meet the needs of children and contribute to their wellbeing and development so that their experiences are both joyful and meaningful. A total of 56 children between the ages of 5 and 7 in 65 educational settings located in central Sweden were included in the study. Amongst the 56 participating children, 29 were identified as having special educational needs. The children's views were collected from 2012 to 2015 using drawings and interviews, and these were analysed using a thematic analysis. Nine themes that reflected matters of importance for the children, both those with and without special educational needs, are described. These themes are discussed and linked to previous research, educational evaluation models, and theories of values and needs.

Does the School Really Support My Child? SOFIA: An Assessment Tool for Families of Children with SEN in Spain

“…Such studies are even scarcer if we consider SEN in general and not as specific disorders [59][60][61]. At the same time, much of the research in this field use qualitative techniques, mainly semi-structured interviews, and focus or discussion groups [64,65], making it difficult to collect, compare, and generalize data.…”

“…Simultaneously, much of the research in the field use qualitative techniques, mainly semi-structured interviews, and focus or discussion groups [56][57][58][59][60], making it difficult to collect, compare and generalize data [61]. The few studies using questionnaires [53,59,60] have focused, as discussed above, either on specific disorders or in student's and teacher's variables [62][63][64][65][66][67][68][69], often leaving aside the perception of the parents. For all the above reasons, there is a need to assess the opinion of the parents of children with SEN regarding the education their children receive, and to give them a voice through a tool that is reliable and valid and that allows studies to be carried out in this respect, in order to enhance the participation of these parents in the inclusive education of their children.…”

Forming Life Values of Children With Special Educational Needs

“…On the base of research [7] there are some themes on children's values and needs: a sense of belonging with peers, opportunities for play, creative activities, and thinking, experiences of speed, excitement, and physical challenges, elements of coziness, withdrawal and comfort for recreation, feeling safe, experience growth in knowledge and understanding of the world, feeling free and autonomous, comforting objects and bonds with home and family, connection with nature.…”

Illuminating young children's perceived notions of inclusion in pedagogical activities

“…Similarly, Lundquist, Allodi Westling and Siljehag (2018) report that for children to maintain and develop positive experiences of early school years, they value and need to feel, a sense of belonging with their peers.…”