Browsing by Subject "erityinen tuki"

Aims. The aim of this qualitative study was to find out what information the special education students' IEPs' (Individual Educational Plan) includes about different activity areas. The activity areas are based on the National Curricula for basic education and they are motor skills, language and communication, social skills, skills in daily functions and cognitive skills. The aim of the study was to find out what other information the IEPs' includes. The study also aimed to find out what information IEPs' includes about multi-professional cooperation and the different responsibility that they share. Even though, the aim of the IEP is to ensure that the right special support is given to the student, there are also concerns about the documents. Earlier research shows for example that the information that has been written to IEPs mainly describes the problems and the challenges that the student has. The goals that have been written to the documents are often general and not measurable. Methods. The research data consist 20 IEPs that has been written to the children with special needs. The data of the research was collected earlier to the use of Special Education Research of the University of Helsinki. The IEPs were written to the students that are in need of the special support and who are studying by the activity areas. The data was analysed by using the qualitative text content analysis and discourse analysis. Results and conclusions. Based on the research, when the data was analysed by the activity areas the IEPs contained mainly information about students' cognitive skills. The discourse analysis showed that the information about activity areas were mainly positive, but there was also negative information concerning the activity areas. The information that were not about the activity areas were for example about student's hobbies, integration, student's self-esteem, motivation and studying environment. The results showed that the other information in the IEPs were mainly neutral. In the IEPs there were all in all 21 different multi-professional cooperation mentioned, but in the documents there were no more information about how the cooperation was organized.

Aims The purpose of this study is to describe the interaction between a special education teacher and a child with a developmental disability in special needs groups. The aim of the study is to find out how the teacher engages interaction with the child in different situations, and how the reciprocal interaction manifests. The study is based on theories of social interaction. Methods The ethnological approach was chosen, as the aim of the study was to describe the interaction between the teacher and child in everyday situations. The data was collected from three special needs groups in early childhood education, in the Helsinki metropolitan area. The data included 351 video recordings, about 4 hours in total. The analysis was limited to 2 hours 42 minutes of video. Data was analyzed in two steps. First the teachers´ engagement to interaction with the child was analyzed using the Suhonen's (2009) form, which is based on the AES (adult engagement scale) developed by Pascall (1995). Then the 17 video literates were analyzed with conversational analysis. The analysis focused on the elements of social interaction, teacher-child interaction initiatives, responding to initiatives and the formation of reciprocal interaction. Findings and conclusions Teachers’ engagement to interaction with the child varied according to situation. Engagement was strongest in teaching activities and weakest in care situations. Successful interaction was formed when the teachers were able to throw themselves in, enable the child's natural initiatives and succeed in recognizing and responding to them. The use of augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) strengthened the interaction. Most genuine connection was formed in idle moments, when spontaneous plays formed between teacher and child. Interaction between a teacher and a child with developmental disabilities is built on the pedagogical activities of the more skilled interaction partner, the teacher. Forming a connection takes time and sensitivity in recognizing the natural interaction methods of the child.

The framework for this study comes from Koster’s, Nakken’s, Pijl’s and van Houten’s (2009) theory of a child’s social participation in a peer group. According to Koster and the partners, social participation is built by four dimensions: child's social self-perception, acceptance by classmates, contacts/interactions and friendships/relationships. A lot of research has been conducted of social participation of children with special educational needs in mainstream schools, but most of the researches are quantitative or have been examined through the adult perceptive. The aim of this study is to examine social participation of a disabled child from multifaceted perspective. In addition to this, the aim is to find out how the dimensions of contacts/interactions and acceptance by classmates are related to each other’s. This is a qualitative case study of a child with Down syndrome, who has been in a mainstream primary school class. The data of this study consists of a thematic interviews of the child herself and the persons who have been involved through her school path. In addition to this the data consists child’s writing book and a message book of a parent and school counselor from the 6th grade. The analysis was done using a deductive content analysis. The results suggested that the child’s social participation of the peer group had been incomplete. On the eyes of outsiders, the child’s social self-perception had been seen as positive, but the child’s own school satisfaction had been alternately positive and negative. The child didn’t have any actual friendships or two-way play during the primary school. During the school years she had participated a lot to classes activities and especially on these situations there had been strong support from the other classmates. In general, the child was a respected and accepted member by her classmates but the externality became relevant in occasional conflicts or on group work situations. Social participation is a key requirement for inclusion and it needs to be reached more so that the equality of every student can be advanced

Objectives. The objective of the study is to find out the quality of the involvement of children with special needs in inclusive day-care group activities. The realization of participation is examined from the perspective of involvement, because by measuring involvement, information of a child’s needs and the quality of early childhood education can be obtained. Involvement is examined to obtain information of the factors that raise or lower the involvement of a child with special needs and also to find out what factors of the instructing adult’s activities affect the involvement to group activities. The hypothesis of the study is that the participation of children with special needs appears differently when early childhood special education teacher is not present in the group. Methods. The data was collected by videotaping three children with special needs in two different inclusive day-care groups in Helsinki. The whole recorded data was approximately 2 hours. The video material was observed, and the involvement of children was measured by using LIS-YC measuring scale specially designed to observe involvement. The study was conducted with qualitative and quantitative principles. The analysis method used was theory-based content analysis. Results. The results of the study show that the involvement of children with special needs who require support was highest when early childhood special education teacher lead the group activi-ties. During the leading of an early childhood education teacher, the involvement was slightly lower, but still almost as high as with the leading of an early childhood special education teacher. Only during leading of a childminder, the involvement to group activities was significantly lower. A clear connection between the activities of the adults to the involvement to group activities was recognised. Sensitive encounter, activities that actively participate the child and activities happen-ing in the zone of proximal development raised the involvement to group activities the most. Correspondingly, not responding to child’s initiatives, activities that participate the child too little, as well as too hard or too easy activities compared to the child’s skill level lowered the involve-ment. As a conclusion, the engagement of children with special needs is very dependent on the adult’s way of acting and the content of activities. The realisation of participation seems to also be connected to the adult’s educational background.

The aim of this study is to identify teachers' opinions and methods in individualisation and special support at vocational adult education and training, and how does the individualisation support the students who have special needs. Target is additionally to identify which methods are needed when teaching students with special needs and what kind of special support the teachers are giving or willing to give. In this study nine teachers were interviewed. Teachers were selected from different sectors of vocational education in all sectors of one VET provider. Data was analysed with case-study approach and Phenomenographic framework. Vocational adult education is based on competence-based qualifications. Each student is provided with individualisation plan to help to reach the required vocational skills. Individualisation plan also includes: learning needs, competencies, possible special needs, needed special support and counselling. Need for special support with adults is recognized and special education and support in adult education is defined in Finnish and international studies. Teachers in VET for adults are giving special support and counselling. Supporting systems are developed by VET providers in their different fields of education. Teachers need more training and discussion about special education. It was found in this study, that teachers used different ways to answer to the students' special needs. Most used methods were: giving more time to learn, individual counselling and support and understanding the different methods of learning. Teachers need still more time and collegial support to help the students to reach their goals. They have the will, but more resources are needed.

The aim of this study was to find out how the municipalities are applied the three-tiered support model in their own ECEC (early childhood education and care) plans and what means general, intensified and special support in ECEC. In addition, the aim was to find out if or not the municipalities provide support in the same way or if there are differences between them. Previous studies on three-tier support in early childhood education have not been conducted, so this study provides new insights into the provision of three-tier support in kindergartens. The subject of the study is very topical. Three-tier support is also likely to be introduced in early childhood education in the next few years, so knowledge of its implementation is needed to prepare fluent support for early childhood education. This study is qualitative and the data is used from the municipalities ECEC plans. These ECEC plans included three-tiered support, or detailed general, intensified, and special support. Ten municipalities of different sizes from all over Finland where examined in this study. The data was analyzed using content analysis and approached using an abductive approach. The data was analyzed using the Atlas software, which supported the coding and classification of the data. The results of the study showed that the municipalities had applied the three-tiered support model in different ways, but there was a high degree of consistency in general. The levels of support were set very similarly by the municipalities and most of the differences were found in the definitions of special support. There are differences as well as similarities between municipal plans at different levels of support. Differences between municipalities were found in the practice of intensified and special support. The differences in general support were minor. In the case of intensified support, differences were mainly found only in the recording of support. In the case of special support, differences were found in the recording for the support, the eligibility criteria, the decision on the special support and organizing environment. According to findings of this research, it appears that there are differences in the implementation of three-tier support in early childhood education, especially in special support. Municipalities may have followed the example on three-tier support models for pre- and / or basic education, and this is reflected in coherence between levels of general and intensified support. Differences between municipalities in the level of special support may lead to inequalities when accessing the support. More precise entries in the Early Childhood Education Act and in the grounds of the ECEC plan are needed to ensure that the support is distributed uniformly throughout the country. In particular, special support needs a common line on when a child is entitled to special support, where the support is recorded and who makes the decision on the special support.

According to the idea of inclusion, all children have the right to attend a school near their home. By doing this, the aim is to realise educational equality in society. In Finland, researchers in the field of educational sciences have ended up using the term integration, which better describes the Finnish pedagogic practices in teaching pupils requiring special support. With integration, schools make pedagogic decisions and direct their resources to help the pupils. The aim of the three-step support decreed by Finnish law is to bring support to the child. Nowadays this happens more and more in general education classes.Teachers have learned to record support forms in pedagogic documents (Thuneberg & Vainikainen, 2015). The subject of my study rose from my 15 years of teaching experience and from current societal discussion. I wanted to listen to class teachers’ experiences about the forms of special support and how this support for integrated pupils really functions in the everyday work of general education classes. The study is based on Bandura’s (1997) social learning theory and the concept of self- efficacy. Phenomenological research methods enable the study of everyday phenomena and experiences that rise from them. To define the teachers’ experiences, I had an inside interview with three class teachers. Each of the teachers had at least one special support pupil in their class. The interviews took place in the spring of 2018. The inter-view material was analysed via qualitative content analysis. Material-based content analysis was started during the interviews and I returned to study the material again at the end of 2019. At that stage, the material classified earlier gave rise to three themes: 1. Functional solutions and forms of support, 2. Challenges faced by the class teachers, and 3. Stress from work. The study showed that class teachers plan and execute forms of special support. Realisation of the support varied from school to school. A common experience for all the teachers in the study was the feeling of loneliness in the classroom. Multi-professional cooperation was not functioning properly, teachers felt the need for an extra adult to help in the everyday situations in the classroom. The teachers talked about work-related stress. Their work was stressful especially when a pupil in the class was showing signs of psychical issues and had a difficult overall situation in life. The teachers experienced self- efficacy and were willing to work to make things better for the pupils. In the case of those pupils whose supporting was most difficult, the teachers felt that their support was not successful, and was therefore insufficient. The experiences of the teachers imply that in order to enforce the feeling of result efficacy, attention should be directed to working conditions and development of collective pedagogic planning and operations. Development of co-teaching could provide relief in teachers’ everyday work. In order for special support to be productive, it is crucial that new operational models combining expertise from different professions are developed and implemented inside the classrooms. When a special support pupil is integrated in a general education class, budgetary savings should never be grounds for a resolution.

The educational reform, launched in Finland in 2008, concerns the implementation of the Special Education Strategy (Opetusministeriö 2007) under an improvement initiative called Kelpo. One of the main proposed alterations of the Strategy relates to the support system of comprehensive school pupils. The existed two-level model (general and special support) is to be altered by the new three-level model (general, intensified and special support). There are 233 municipalities involved nationwide in the Kelpo initiative, each of which has a municipal coordinator as a national delegate. The Centre for Educational Assessment [the Centre] at the University of Helsinki, led by Professor Jarkko Hautamäki, carries out the developmental assessment of the initiative's developmental process. As a part of that assessment the Centre interviewed 151 municipal coordinators in November 2008. This thesis considers the Kelpo initiative from Michael Fullan's change theory's aspect. The aim is to identify the change theoretical factors in the speech of the municipal coordinators interviewed by the Centre, and to constitute a view of what the crucial factors in the reform implementation process are. The appearance of the change theoretical factors, in the coordinators' speech, and the meaning of these appearances are being considered from the change process point of view. The Centre collected the data by interviewing the municipal coordinators (n=151) in small groups of 4-11 people. The interview method was based on Vesala and Rantanen's (2007) qualitative attitude survey method which was adapted and evolved for the Centre's developmental assessment by Hilasvuori. The method of the analysis was a qualitative theory-based content analysis, processed using the Atlas.ti software. The theoretical frame of reference was grounded on Fullan's change theory and the analysis was based on three change theoretical categories: implementation, cooperation and perspectives in the change process. The analysis of the interview data revealed spoken expressions in the coordinators' speech which were either positively or negatively related to the theoretical categories. On the grounds of these change theoretical relations the existence of the change process was observed. The crucial factors of reform implementation were found, and the conclusion is that the encounter of the new reform-based and already existing strategies in school produces interface challenges. These challenges are particularly confronted in the context of the implementation of the new three-level support model. The interface challenges are classified as follows: conceptual, method-based, action-based and belief-based challenges.

The aim of this study was to examine the experiences and thoughts relating to secondary education choices of students receiving special support. According to previous research, transitions among students receiving special support are more precarious than other students and special education students are dropping out of upper secondary education more often than others. The study examined what kind of capacity students receiving special support have to make educational choices, as well as what issues cause them concern. In order to carry out the study, five students with special support and their student counsellor were interviewed. The data was analysed using methods of data-based content analysis. The capacity of special education students to make educational choices was accompanied by the following concepts: informational capacity, motivation and social support. According to the results of the study, students' informational capabilities are not sufficient and a large proportion of pupils did not have the capacity for independent information retrieval; instead, pupils relied heavily on the guidance and support received. Students felt that they received information through guidance, visitations to schools and from adults acting as professional prequels. Choices that were made independently and based on their own desires appeared as motivating factor. Support from family was important. Students receiving special support were concerned by the realisation of their own choice, the achievement of goals in primary school, and their own skills to study at secondary level. For students, finding an alternative education sector appeared challenging and they were concerned with the possibility of failure of their first choice. This is also coupled with the fact that students were concerned about whether they would manage to meet their target for a final assessment. In addition, the level of coping with learning disabilities in upper secondary education and the contents of education concerned pupils and did not feel they had been adequately informed about these.

This research is a part of a wider research in the metropolitan area. Junior high school and high school students (n=700) participated in a research about a meaningful and happy school in 2015. The goal is to chart what a meaningful and happy school is like and to get some concrete information about students to improve studying to be more up to date. The purpose of this research is to study the students motivation for studying in the metropolitan area and the needs for social and physical environment. One of the baselines used in this research is Ryan's & Decin's self-determination theory (2000). The research focuses on the answers (n=322) of the students concerning studying motivation, and the social and physical environments in three different junior high schools. The materials were collected through web inquiries. This is a quantitative partial taken from all material, which is analyzed by the Kruskall-Wallis test and variance analysis tests. The students' answers were separated into the students who need general, intensified and special support. The answers are used to find out if the students who need special support want the same matters as the students who need general and intensified support. And to study what kind of differences there are between the students who need special support and those who need general and intensified support. The results show that 86 % of the students, especially students who need special support, want areas to school for relaxing with possibilities to use computers. The students hope to have small rooms for studying by themselves privately. This was also suggested mostly by the students who need special support. At 82 % of students want to use gyms at playtime during the school day. The students who need general support pointed out that school is an important place for meeting friends. From the results we can see that students who need general and intensified support are more motivated to study than the students who need special support. We can affect to the students motivation for studying with support and early stage prevention. Schools can take advantage of the results of this study and they have chances to have an effect on the studying motivation and improving the environment for their students. Motivation and physical and social environment can be used for making school a better place for students.