SOCIAL SKILLS DEVELOPMENT FOR THE INTEGRATION OF PRESCHOOLERS WITH ASD IN MAINSTREAM EDUCATION
Abstract
With each passing year, it is found that there is a growing need for methods and strategies to make education more efficient, methods that correspond to the particularities and developmental needs of children. A special category that requires a varied and distinct approach is preschoolers with ASD; they often find it harder to adapt to the structured environment of the kindergarten, and they fail to communicate effectively or make friends as easily as their peers of the same age. They may also find it difficult to interpret what others are thinking and feeling, and to recognize their own emotions. As a result of these deficits, emotional problems such as anxiety and stress can appear, which often lead to unwanted behaviors (tantrums, meltdowns). The aim of this research was to develop and implement a personalized intervention program in order to improve social skills to facilitate the successful integration of preschoolers with ASD in mainstream education. After calculating the size of the effect to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed personalized intervention program, an r=.91 for social reciprocity and an r=.90 for social interaction were obtained, which means that the personalized intervention program had a strong effect.
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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejse.v11i6.6243
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