This section presents the publications made during the project and the summaries of the presentations given in the national and international congresses.
1- Examining Parent-Teacher Relationship in Preschool Inclusion Classrooms [PDF] 
Bülbin Sucuoğlu, Hatice Bakkaloğlu, Zafer Ertürk
Oral Presentation (Turkish)
25th National Special Education Congress
December 2-4, 2015
Link: http://medula.com.tr/kongreler/uoek2015/
A strong and effective teacher-parent relationship in the preschool period increases the satisfaction of parents and makes them feel more competent and stronger (Dunst & Dempsey, 2007), positively influencing the early school adjustment and motivation of the child (Hughes & Oi-man Kwok, 2007; Pirchio, Tritrini, Passiotere, & Taeschner, 2013). Parental communication skills, their knowledge of the impact of their participation in education on child development, satisfaction with the child's participation in the program, their experience in the school, and self-competence affect the quality of the parent-teacher relationship. On the other hand, it is thought that the teacher's education, experience, satisfaction with her/his job and her/his attitudes towards parents, and leadership qualities influence this relationship, children's social skills, problem behaviors as well as cognitive skills are also indicative of parent-professional relationship (As cited in Schwartz & Eastbrook, 2014). However, most of the studies on this subject were conducted in primary school classrooms, and the parent-teacher relationship in inclusive preschool classrooms caught the attention of very few researchers. For example, in one study, it was suggested that parents of children with attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder had difficulty in establishing relationships with teachers and that the relationship changed depending on the difficulties experienced by the child and teacher in the classroom (Mautone, Marcelle, Tresco, & Power, 2014).
In preschools in Turkey, parent-teacher relationships, school-family cooperation (Aktaş-Arnas, 2009), family participation (Gürşimşek, Kefi, & Girgin, 2007), communication and cooperation (Atabey & Sezel-Sahin, 2011), and effects of parent-teacher relationship (Gökalp, Barut & Menteşe, 2010) have been examined. However, there are not any studies which have examined the parent-teacher relationship in inclusive preschool classrooms. In this study, it is aimed to compare the relationships between the teachers and parents of the children with and without special needs in the inclusive preschool classrooms and to identify the basic variables related to the child, teacher, and parent that affect these relationships.
The study group consisted of parents and teachers of 22 children with special needs and 22 children without special needs who are enrolled in preschools. The parent-teacher relationship for both groups was assessed using the Parent-Teacher Relationship Quality Scale developed by Penderi and Petrogiannis (2013). The scale consists of two factors such as trust / acceptance and communication / reactivity. With this scale, which has separate forms for parents and teachers, the teacher-parent relationships are evaluated from the point of view of both teachers and parents. The structure of the Turkish form of the scale is very similar to the original scale, and its validity and reliability are acceptable (Sucuoğlu, Bakkaloğlu, & Ertürk, 2015). The analysis of the study is still ongoing.
2- An Examination of the School Adjustment of Children with and without Special Needs [PDF]
Hatice Bakkaloğlu, Bülbin Sucuoğlu, Zafer Ertürk
Oral Presentation (Turkish)
25th National Special Education Congress
December 2-4, 2015
Link: http://medula.com.tr/kongreler/uoek2015/
There is an increasing number of studies which suggest that school adjustment of children in the early years predict later academic success (Betts & Rotenberg, 2007). It has been found that the characteristics related to the child, family, and program (academic, social, emotional, behavioral and cognitive development of the child; gender, having special needs, relations with the peers and teachers; family socioeconomic status, crowded classes, etc.) have correlations with difficulties in school adjustment (Haymes, Fowler, & Cooper, 1994; Hausken & Rathbun, 2002; Ladd, Birch, & Buhs, 1999; McIntyre, Blacher, & Baker, 2006). It is known that there is a gender difference in the adjustment in the early years, girls have better adjustment than boys (Betts & Rotenberg, 2007; Birch & Ladd, 1997), and having special needs cause issues in school adjustment (Haymes et al., 1994, McIntyre et al., 2006). For this reason, it is thought that the examination of school adjustment, which is important for long-term school success, will provide important results for studies aiming to increase the effectiveness of inclusive practices.
Purpose of the Study
In this study, it was examined whether or not the adjustment of the children to the inclusive preschool classrooms differs according to gender and having special needs.
Method
There were 257 children (127 girls, 130 boys) enrolled in the classrooms of 22 teachers from 9 independent preschools. 15 of the children were three, 27 were four, 113 were five, 88 were six, and 14 were seven years old of whom 22 were children with special needs.
In order to collect data, firstly the Information Form was used to determine the demographic characteristics of the children and teachers in the study group. Secondly, the revised version of the school adjustment scale, which was developed by Birch and Ladd (1997) and had 52 items, namely Teacher Rating Scale of School Adjustment-Short Form (TRSSA-SF) which was revised by Betts and Rotenberg (2007), was used. The Turkish validity and reliability studies of TRSSA-SF were conducted by Bakkaloğlu, Sucuoğlu, and Ertürk (2015) and it was found that it is a valid and reliable tool which can be used to evaluate the school adjustment of preschool children. Data collection tools were filled out by classroom teachers for a total of five children, one of whom was the child with special needs, and four of whom were randomly selected from the list of children in the classroom.
Findings and Results
Analyses using the t-test to determine whether school adjustment of preschool children differed by gender were found to be significantly different in TRSSA-SF (t= 4.58; p <0.01) and the mean scores of girls were found to be higher than boys.
Since TRSSA-SF was conducted for 22 children with special needs, 22 children without special needs of the same gender in their classrooms were randomly selected, and the Mann-Whitney U Test was used to determine whether there was a difference between the total scores of the children. As a result of the analysis, it was found that there was a significant difference between the total scores of the children with and without special needs (U: 109; p <0.05) and the mean ranks of the children without special needs were higher than the children with special needs.
The findings obtained from this study were consistent with the literature, it was found that gender and having special needs are important factors in the adjustment of children in the preschools; adjustment of girls is better than boys and adjustment of children without special needs is better than children with special needs.
3- Parent-Teacher Relationships and School Adjustment in Inclusive Preschools [PDF]
Bülbin Sucuoğlu, Hatice Bakkaloğlu, Zafer Ertürk
Poster Presentation (English)
International Society on Early Intervention Conference, Stockholm, Sweden
June 8 – 10, 2016
Link: https://depts.washington.edu/isei/2016conf.html
The parent-teacher relationship is very important for young children, and it affects the development and learning of the children as well as their adjustment to preschool. The purpose of this study is to investigate to what extent parent-teacher relationships affect school adjustment of children with and without disabilities in Turkey. The findings may provide a wide framework for establishing parent-teacher relationships in preschool inclusion settings useful to both researchers and practitioners.
4- The factors predicting the developmental gains of children with disabilities in inclusive preschools [PDF]
Bülbin Sucuoğlu, Hatice Bakkaloğlu, Zafer Ertürk, Şeyda Demir, Betül Yılmaz, Abdulhamit Karademir
Oral Presentation (English)
International Society on Early Intervention Conference, Stockholm, Sweden
June 8 – 10, 2016
Link: https://depts.washington.edu/isei/2016conf.html
This study is a part of a research project that focuses on evaluating preschool inclusion granted by The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey. We aim to determine whether the factors such as home environment, parent-teacher relationship, the quality of classrooms and children characteristics predict the developmental gains of children with and without disabilities placed in preschool classrooms. All findings will be discussed in terms of preschool inclusion practices in Turkey.
5- An Examination of Variables Predicting the Quality of Inclusive Preschool Classrooms [PDF]
Betül Yılmaz, Hatice Bakkaloğlu, Bülbin Sucuoğlu
Oral Presentation (Turkish)
International Contemporary Education Research Congress
September 29 – October 2, 2016
Link: http://www.ceadder.org/index.php/tr/
Preschool inclusion is a practice in our country for children with special needs who are 37-72 months old according to the Decree-Law No. 573 (1997) and Regulation on Special Education Services (2006). It has been examined that preschool inclusion practices have beneficial consequences for both children with and without special needs (Hunt, Farron-Davis, Beckstead, Curtis, & Goetz, 1994; Lipsky, & Gartner, 1996. Guralnick, Neville, Hammond, & Connor, 2008). The quality of inclusive preschool classrooms has frequently been addressed in especially the international literature in to reach the expected positive results for inclusion and to maximize the benefits of inclusive environments (Odom, Buysse, & Soukakou, 2011). The quality of inclusive preschool classrooms has many features in the structural and procedural dimensions for teachers, students, the environment, families, and the classroom (Yilmaz, 2014). Different dimensions of classroom quality predict the quality of inclusive preschools thus standards related to this subject have been tried to be established.
The purpose of this research is to examine whether the quality of inclusive preschool classrooms and to identify whether some variables related to the teacher, child with special needs and classroom are predictive of the quality of the classrooms.
To achieve the purpose of this study, the quality of 53 inclusive preschool classrooms in which children with special needs are educated were assessed with the "Inclusive Classroom Profile.” In addition, information related to the variables related to teachers working in 53 classrooms (e.g., professional experience, attitudes towards inclusion, whether or not they had former children with special needs in their classrooms, participation in seminars related to special education); as well as variables related to the children with special needs (e.g., level of impairment), and demographic information (e.g., classroom size) were collected.
In the study findings, firstly quantitative information on the quality of preschool classrooms will be presented, then the results of regression analysis will be shared regarding whether teacher, child and classroom variables predict classroom quality. The data analysis of the study is still ongoing. After the completion of the data analysis, the findings will be discussed within the context of the literature.
6- What did we Learn from the Project on Effects of Preschool Inclusion on Children's Development (PEPIC)? [PDF]
Bülbin Sucuoğlu, Hatice Bakkaloğlu, Şeyda Demir, Abdulhamit Karademir, Betül Yılmaz, Sıla Alış
Oral Presentation (Turkish)
26th National Special Education Congress
October 5-8, 2016
Link: http://www.uoek2016.org/
In the context of inclusive practices which began in the 1980s in our country young children with special needs (SN) are placed in preschool classrooms. With the Decree-Law No. 573 (1997) and parallel with it Special Education Services Regulation (2006), it has become compulsory for children with SN to continue education in the same preschools with their peers and to be provided with the necessary support in the preschools. Preschool inclusion has been shown to be beneficial for both children with and without SN. For this reason, in many countries inclusion in the early childhood period is still questioned and in addition it is aimed to improve the inclusion practices continuously. The variables affecting the success of the inclusion are identified by examining all aspects of inclusion such as the competencies of the teachers working in the inclusive classrooms, and the developmental gains of the children, etc. In this way, it is attempted to create inclusion models which will provide the best outputs for children with and without SN in the same classrooms. On the other hand, in our country, short-term training was given to preschool teachers in a few studies to examine the effects of this training. In these studies, the attitudes of the teachers about the training program and their opinions about the program were investigated. However, there are not any studies examining how the preschool education lead to the change in the children's development.
The purpose of this project is to longitudinally examine the development of young children with and without SN who are enrolled in preschools and to identify the variables which predict their development.
In order to reach this purpose, the development of 122 children of which 61 were children with SN and 61 were without SN who were enrolled in the independent preschools in Turkey was assessed. Their teachers and parents provided data regarding their abilities, social skills, problem behaviors, social acceptance, school adjustment, the quality of their home, and preschool classrooms’ quality. In addition, the relationship of teachers with the two groups of children and the parent-teacher relationship was evaluated both in terms of parents and teachers.
In the first year of the project, the data of the first two phases of the longitudinal study, once in the Fall and then in the Spring semesters of the 2015-2016 academic year, was collected. Data of the last phase will be collected during 2017 Spring semester. In this study; studies implemented before, during, and after the implementation, experiences in reaching the target group and ensuring continuity of the group, difficulties experienced during the data collection process, and the reasons for data loss, etc. will be shared. It is hoped that sharing the experiences of the project with other researchers and practitioners will provide guidance for future projects / research studies.
7-The quality of parent–teacher relationships in inclusive preschools
Nimet Bülbin Sucuoğlu & Hatice Bakkaloğlu
The parent–teacher relationship is one of the main elements of effective preschool inclusion affecting children, parent and teacher outcomes; therefore, the purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between parents (mothers) and teachers in inclusive preschool classrooms. The data were collected from 44 mother–teacher dyads that have children with (CWD) and without disabilities (CWOD) using the Quality of Parent-Teacher Relationship Scale in the Kindergarten-Parent and Teacher Form. The results showed that the teachers’ perception on the quality of their relationships with the mothers of the CWD and CWOD did not differ significantly. Nevertheless, the mothers of CWD total score and communication scores were lower than the other group of mothers’ scores. There was also significant correlation between mother and teacher total and factor scores indicating the congruence in their belief about the quality of their relationships
Link: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03004430.2016.1261124