A key component of the
EST-project will be translating the findings of our treatment trial to the
community. We want to ensure that as many preschool children as possible are
getting access to the best stuttering intervention available. As part of this
process, we will be engaging with health and education professionals in the
community who are involved in the care of these children. One of the groups we
will therefore be working closely with is kindergarten teachers. Our team has
recently started reviewing the level of training and knowledge Norwegian
kindergarten teachers currently have about working with children with communication
difficulties including stuttering and we have uncovered some surprising
findings!
In Norway, 91% of
children, aged 1-5 years, attend kindergarten; most of these children attend
for 41 hours or more each week (Statistics Norway, 2018). There are over 5,800 kindergarten
centers throughout Norway; half of them are publicly owned (Statistics Norway,
2018).
Kindergartens are
pedagogical institutions for children below the compulsory school age of six
years. The Norwegian governments framework
plan stipulates that one of the kindergarten teachers tasks is to identify,
monitor and support children with communication difficulties (Norwegian
Ministry for Education and Research, 2017).
There are 12 tertiary
institutions (including one Sami) throughout Norway that offer Bachelor
programs of kindergarten teacher education. In 2017, 1,859 kindergarten
teachers graduated from this bachelor degree across these institutions (DBS,
2018). These programs are designed based on the National Curriculum Regulations for Kindergarten Teacher Education in
Norway (Ministry of Education and Research, 2012). This curriculum highlights
the importance of incorporating special needs education into these programs.
“The study programme should emphasise the
growing diversity in kindergartens, including the higher proportion of children
under the age of three, the increased number of children with special needs and
growing numbers of multilingual children.”
It further states that
a graduate must possess:
“broad knowledge about children’s language
development (…) is able to evaluate, stimulate and support children’s different
abilities and take their different backgrounds and aptitudes into account (…)
is able to identify special needs in individual children.”
The national
curriculum does not however provide many details regarding teaching students
specifically about children with special needs. In Norway, all students enrolled
in a Bachelor of Kindergarten Teacher Education complete at least 100 days on field
placements throughout their candidature. During this time, it is likely that
they will meet children with communication difficulties. Given that more than 1
in 10 preschool children stutter, the likelihood of students meeting at least
one child who stutters is very high.
A brief review of tertiary
institutions which offer Bachelor programs of kindergarten teacher education
revealed that the focus on children with special needs varies greatly between
courses. One institution did not provide any reference to children with special
needs in their course overview while another stated that graduates should have knowledge
of how to support children with special needs. However, there were also institutions
that explicitly mentioned children with communication difficulties in their
course overview. This review is consistent with findings from a recently
published report about kindergarten teacher education (Bjerkestrand et al.,
2017) that stated some tertiary institutions are concerned that kindergarten
teacher education programs do not include enough content about children with
special needs. The depth of knowledge and training Norwegian kindergarten
teachers have about children with special needs, particularly those with communications
difficulties, may therefore reflect where they obtained their degree. Further,
a report published this year about special needs education in Norway revealed
that within kindergarten settings teacher assistants spend the most time with
children with special needs. Importantly, these assistants do not require a
formal degree to fulfill this role (Nordahl et al., 2018).
Based on this, it
seems there is a discrepancy between the government’s report of increasing
numbers of children with special needs and their call for kindergarten teachers
to extend their knowledge about this population and the curriculum currently
being taught in tertiary institutions. These findings have highlighted the
importance of the third component of the EST-project, translation of results to
the community! We have a really important aim to improve kindergarten teacher and
teaching assistant’s knowledge of children who stutter. They see these children
and their parents every week and therefore hold a really important role in
ensuring that these children are identified and receive the best possible care
as soon as possible. Hopefully, this blog can be one way that we begin to
spread our message!
From the EST-project
team
References:
Bjerkestrand, M. et
al. (2017). Sluttrapport frå Følgjegruppa for barnehagelærarutdanning til
Kunnskapsdepartementet. Rapport nr. 5. Retrieved from https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/0efc6554255647b1b138e4a2507f0c17/sluttrapport-fra-folgjegruppa-for-barnehagelararutdanning.pdf
Broström, S.,
Johansson, I., Sandberg, A., & Frøkjær, T. (2014). Preschool teachers’ view on learning in
preschool in Sweden and Denmark. European
Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22(5), 590-603. Doi: 10.1080/1350293X.2012.746199.
Nordahl, T. et al. (2018). Inkluderende fellesskap for barn og unge.
Ekspertgruppen for barn og unge med behov for særskilt tilrettelegging. Retrieved
from
Norwegian Ministry of
Education and Research. (2017). Framework
plan for kindergarten. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/globalassets/filer/barnehage/rammeplan/framework-plan-for-kindergartens2-2017.pdf
Norwegian Ministry of
Education and Research. (2012). National
Curriculum Regulations for Kindergarten Teacher Education Retrieved from https://www.regjeringen.no/contentassets/389bf8229a3244f0bc1c7835f842ab60/blu---forskrift-engelsk-ny-versjon-med-endringer-15-03-2016-1.pdf
Statistics Norway.
(2018). Kindergartens. Retrieved from
https://www.ssb.no/en/utdanning/statistikker/barnehager
