Early Intervention for Children with Disabilities as an Enhancement of Inclusive Education Development: an Evaluation of School and Community inputs in Kamonyi District.

Abstract

Children with disabilities are given opportunities to fully participate in inclusive schools as their peers without disabilities and they are provided with the additional support services among which are early intervention services. Therefore, this study analyzed the relationship between early intervention for children with disabilities and enhancement of inclusive education development basing on the community and school inputs. It was guided by three objectives in which the first one was to analyze the contribution of Kamonyi District community in early childhood education, the second one was about analyzing school requirements at pre-primary education levels for children with disabilities and the last objective was to find out the benefits of early intervention for children with disabilities in inclusive education. The study used both qualitative and quantitative approaches and purposively involved 87 respondents comprising of children with disabilities, class representatives, school administrative staff, teachers and parents of children with disabilities from 3 inclusive schools located in Kamonyi District. The data was collected through questionnaires, interviews, focus group discussions and observations. The qualitative data were then analyzed through categorization of responses whereas quantitative data were analyzed and presented using tables and percentages. Results of the study revealed that there was a strong relationship between early intervention for children with disabilities and enhancement of inclusive education development. Parents seek assistance for children with disabilities before they go to school. Parents and teachers are aware of the program of early childhood intervention and integrated efforts from different stakeholders are combined in Kamonyi District for the success of the program. Different services like education, psychological and occupational therapy, physiotherapy are provided to children with disabilities below and above primary school age and those services are received at school. The results also revealed that early childhood interventions improve the wellbeing of children with disabilities and their families. In the study it is recommended to improve the early intervention services by providing budget to equip inclusive schools from nursery level, to also enhance parents, guardians and all caregivers’ collaboration with schools on regular basis for the wellbeing of children with disabilities and also to bring children with disabilities to the professionals as soon as they realize that their children do not develop at the same pace like their peers of the same age and to train preschool teachers.