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Background: In Indonesia, inclusive education is already encouraged by the Indonesian government. Stated in Regulation No. 70 of 2009 by Minister of Education and Culture, inclusive education is a system that encourages children with or without special needs to learn together in the same setting. Inclusive education is applied throughout different levels of education, from early childhood education to university. In Indonesia, currently, there have been quite a lot of early childhood education institutions that apply inclusive education. The purpose of inclusive education in early childhood education is to meet the educational needs of children with special needs and abilities from the early age. In addition, inclusive education also provides benefits for typical children to be able to interact, communicate, and also adapt to the various environmental conditions.

 

Earlier studies found that inclusive education systems can encourage acceptance of children with special needs, as shown by the attitudes towards them. Acceptance of children with special needs is crucial because the feeling of being accepted enables children with special needs to feel like they are not different from the regular children. Acceptance by peers in early childhood is seen from the extent to which the child is socially accepted. The impact of acceptance by peers depends on the degree to which children are accepted and liked by peers. They also found that the acceptance level of children with special needs differs between boys and girls. Girls have a higher acceptance level than boys. The child's age correlates positively with their feeling with special needs.

 

On the contrary, in other empirical studies, it was found that children with special needs are more often excluded from play activity by their peers. Children in their early years prefer to play with typical children to children with special needs. This tendency also shows in preschool settings in Indonesia. Based on the interviews with some early childhood education institutions, children with special needs are still experiencing difficulties in mingling with their peers. They face difficulty in building interaction with typical children. There are still some typical children who refuse to include children with special needs in learning and play activities. This condition is contradictory to other studies of early childhood inclusive education. Based on these studies, the current study aims at finding the degree to which young children at the preschool level accept their peers with special needs. This description of acceptance is seen from the gender and age of the child.

Methods: The respondents are 100 children typical children aged 5-6 years old and typical children in inclusive public or private kindergarten in Jakarta. The accidental sampling method is used to find respondents. The instrument used in this study is Acceptance Scale for Kindergarten-Revised (ASK-R). This inventory measures peer acceptance of children with disabilities in the preschoolers. ASK-R consists of 18 items that measure attitudes in preschool children, reflected in their affections and behaviors. There are 3 scales of response in the ASK-R: yes, no, and do not know. The three response options are represented by symbols of facial expression of a smiley face, a sad face, and a thinking face, respectively.

 

Data is collected by interviewing three respondents at a time administration. Researchers will read the questions on ASK-R items to the respondents, then they are asked to choose one of the responses in accordance with what they feel. The data retrieval process lasts for 20-30 minutes for each administration. The data will be analyzed using one sample t-test analysis, in order to obtain information about the peer acceptance level of children with special needs according to respondents' gender and age.

Results: Currently, the study of preschool children's peer acceptance of peers with special needs is ongoing.

Conclusion: This study is ongoing

Added value: Further study should conduct with earlier age

 

Keywords: inclusive education, early childhood, inclusive preschool, peer acceptance, a student with a special needs

 

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