Kindergarten teachers' perceptions of instructing students with disabilities

This investigation determined the perceptions of kindergarten teachers abou t the desirability and feasibility of practices identified to enhance outco mes for children with disabilities as they make the transition from their p rekindergarten programs to kindergarten. Thirty-one kindergarten teachers p articipated by completing the 28-item, Likert-type (1 = low. 5 = high) Adap tations for Kindergarten Children with Disabilities questionnaire and respo nding to two open-ended questions. Applying the Wilcoxon signed ranks two-t ailed test, it was shown that. with the exception of one item (maintain por tfolios), there were statistically significant differences between teachers ' views of the desirability of implementing each practice and the feasibili ty of implementation. Furthermore, the median scores for desirability of im plementation were less than 5 for only two items, while most of the ratings for feasibility received median scores lower than 5. Responses to open-end ed questions revealed that the majority of teachers did not perceive that t hey were adequately prepared to teach children with disabilities, yet most teachers indicated that they were somewhat confident that they could make i nstructional adaptations for children with special needs.