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The purpose of this study was to describe the current state of early literacy-rich settings of inclusive preschool classrooms where inclusive practices are implemented. In order to build the scale (measurement instrument), first, an item pool was created, expert input was solicited, and a pilot form of the scale was created, all in accordance with the study’s objectives. Following that, data were collected from 311 teachers employed in 55 kindergartens to undertake validity and reliability analyses of the measurement instrument and to construct its final form. The study began with an examination of the validity and reliability of the Preschool Early Literacy Settings Evaluation Scale (PELSES). Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the scale’s factor structure, yielding a 27-item 5-factor PELSES with eigenvalues ranging from 1.43 to 9.27. Second, the state of the early literacy-rich settings of preschool classroom environments was described by determining mean scores and the classroom environments these scores represented. According to the findings, 17.4% of the preschool classrooms in the study were classified as inadequate, 30.2% as incomplete, 35.4% as average, and 17% as good classroom environments. Finally, which demographic characteristics make a difference in early literacy settings in inclusive preschool classrooms were investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: This study was conducted to explore the effect of motor coordination on repetitive behaviors in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) aged 5–15 years. Methods: The study employed the causal-comparative design, one of the correlational survey designs. The study was carried out with data obtained from parents of 241 children with ASD. The parents were administered the measurement tools of Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2-Turkish Version to confirm the diagnosis of ASD, Demographic Information Form to obtain information about the child and the parent, Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised-Turkish Version to evaluate the repetitive behaviors, and Developmental Coordination Disorder Questionnaire-07-Turkish Version to evaluate the motor coordination performance. The data were analyzed MANCOVA in the R package program. Results: The study results revealed that 72% of children with ASD had a risk of Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD). The repetitive behaviors of children with and without DCD risk differed significantly. The severity and intensity of the repetitive behaviors of children with DCD risk were higher than those without DCD risk when age, gender, and comorbidity were taken under control. Conclusion: The motor coordination problems in children with ASD are effective on repetitive behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Imitation has an important place in the observational learning process. Children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may experience limitations in imitation ability. These limitations are associated with deficits in abilities associated with ASD including understanding intention. In this study, the imitation skills and intention understanding levels of children with ASD and typically developing (TD) children were compared. Relationships between imitation, intention understanding levels and symptom severity in children with ASD, and the predictive status of these variables on symptom severity were examined. Findings showed that children with ASD experienced limitations in spontaneous imitation and in different areas of understanding intention, compared to their TD peers. There were significant relationships between imitation, intention understanding levels and symptom severity; the level of spontaneous imitation and intention understanding predicted symptom severity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine classification accuracy for the expressive language skills of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in terms of object play and imitation scores. A total of 61 children with ASD, who were 2.0–5.11 years old, were included in the study. In order to collect data play and imitation assessment tasks which were adapted from the literature were implemented and parents filled the demographical information form as well as the Turkish Communicative Development Inventory. As a result of the study, there was a significant difference between the object play and imitation scores of children with ASD who had and did not have expressive language skills. This significant difference was confirmed by the classification accuracy which was conducted to predict whether children with ASD had expressive language skills or not. Object play and imitation scores classified children with ASD with an accuracy level of 75.4% in terms of whether or not being verbal, and the effect of object play score was higher in this classification process than imitation score. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to examine the psychometric properties as well as to conduct cross-cultural adaptation studies of the Social Responsiveness Scale-2-Preschool Turkish Form (SRS-2-PTF) completed by parents that is used to assess social awareness, social cognition, social communication, social motivation, and restricted interests and repetitive behaviors of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). SRS-2-PTF is a tool which examines social communication skills of children 30 to 54 months age and identifies children with ASD or at risk for ASD during early periods as well as provides information about the severity of ASD. The scale consists of five sub dimensions and 65 items. The parent form of the scale's Turkish adaptation and reliability-validity studies were conducted with 2 to 5-year-old children in Ankara and İstanbul. The scale's construct validity, criterion validity, and reliability were examined. The confirmatory factor analysis, which was conducted as the construct validity study, showed that the fit indices of the scale were acceptable for both two-dimensional and five-dimensional structure, and SRS-2-PTF, which has five sub dimensions and 65 items, is consistent with the construct of the original scale's factor structure. As a criterion validity, sub factors and total score of SRS-2-PTF had significant correlations with "communication," "social interaction," and "stereotypical behaviors" sub scales of Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2-Turkish Version (GARS-2-TV). As the reliability study, Cronbach Alpha coefficients and item total score correlations were calculated, they showed that the scale had a good reliability. As a result of this study, SRS-2-PTF is a valid and reliable tool in identifying children with ASD and at risk for ASD as well as assessing their social communication behaviors in depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to investigate the home environments of young children with (CWDs) and without disabilities (CWODs) with the aim of identifying the relationships between the development of children and their home environments. The study analyses further, whether inclusive preschools, as an intervention, have an influence on the quality of home environments of both group of children. The study is based on an assessment of the family homes of 61 pairs of CWDs and CWODs, using data gathered through the Home Screening Questionnaire-Turkish (HSQ-T) and the Gazi Early Childhood Assessment Tool (GECAT). The analysis revealed that the quality of the home environments of CWDs and CWODs is significantly different in favour of CWODs and that significant relationships exist between the HSQ-T scores and the language and socio-emotional development scores of the CWDs. A significant relationship was found between only socio-emotional development and home environment of CWODs. In addition, it was found that inclusive preschools influenced the quality of the family homes of not only CWODs but also CWDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: One of the diagnosis criteria for autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is repetitive behaviors and the severity of the repetitive behaviors is an important variable in identifying the severity of the disorder as well. In the current study the Repetitive Behavior Scale-Revised (RBS-R-TV), which is used to assess the severity and types of repetitive behaviors in individuals with ASD, is adapted to Turkish and psychometric characteristics of the Turkish form are examined. Method: The participants consisted of 292 individuals with ASD, who were 3 to 23 years old (M=240, F=52). The parents of the participant individuals were asked to fill the RBS-R-TV. The ASD diagnosis of the participants were confirmed by Gilliam Autism Rating Scale-2-Turkish Form (TV-GARS-2). To measure validity of the scale; content, construct, criterion, and predictive validity analyses were conducted, and for reliability the scale’s internal consistency was examined by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients. Findings: The ana-lyses showed that RBS-R-TV has good content validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) revealed that it has a six factor structure, and model fit indices showed a good fit (χ2/df=2.00, RMSEA=0.059, SRMR=0.067, NNFI=0.94, CFI=0.94). Discriminant validity indicated that children with ASD had significantly higher scores than the children with intellectual disabilities in RBS-R-TV and predictive validity analysis showed that total scores obtained from RBS-R-TV significantly predicted the severity of autistic disorder. As the reliability analysis, internal consistency coefficients were between 0.73 to 0.94 for sub scales and the total score. Discussion: Analyses showed that RBSR- TV is a valid and reliable tool for the use of diagnosticians, researchers, and educators [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, in-classroom transitions in inclusive preschools in Turkey were examined. The study, which was conducted with the descriptive model, was carried out with 30 preschool teachers and 30 children with special needs (CWSN) and 30 children without special needs from these teachers' classes. In order to collect data, Information Form and Classroom Transitions of Preschools Observation Form were developed. Analyses from structured observations indicated that the teachers used different types of transition strategies but did not use most of the transition strategies which were suggested to be used in literature, and they spent 35.09% of two-hour school time for transitions. Statistically significant differences were found in the frequency of prompts teachers provide and in the frequency of problem behaviours displayed. Besides, the analysis revealed that children's use of time to complete transitions did not differ significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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