Analysis of Understanding the Dynamics of Kindergarten Teacher on
Children with Special Needs
Mubiar Agustin
Early Childhood Education Teacher Program, Faculty of Education, Universitas Pendidikan Indonesia, Jl. Dr. Setiabudhi
no 229 Bandung, West Java, Indonesia
Keywords: Children with Special Needs, Kindergarten teacher.
Abstract: This research moved from the low level phenomenon of understanding of kindergarten teachers about children
with special needs. The purpose of this study was to determine the dynamics of kindergarten teachers'
understanding of children with special needs. The method used in this research is one of the kindergartens in
Bandung, Indonesia with the subject of three teachers. Data was collected using an interview technique with
duration of three times a week with one hour on each meeting. The result is that there is a group of kindergarten
children with special needs. The diversity of teachers' understanding of children and their needs towards
children with special needs, could possibly lead to mistreatment done by teachers to children with special
needs, whereas the regulation of education has determined that the kindergarten must receive children with
special needs without discrimination. As any implication, the results of this study suggest that the need for
more intensive socialization on inclusive education, especially for kindergarten, then there should be a basic
skill development training for kindergarten teachers on children's behalf.
1 INTRODUCTION
Having a full understanding of the students for a
teacher Kindergarten is an obligation, including
understanding the needs and characteristics of
children who are included in a group of children with
special needs. Full understanding of the children with
special needs will help teachers provide appropriate
services to the needs of children without
discrimination (Cassady, 2011). Discriminative
treatment on learning will provide physical and
psychological impact to the child (Graven, 2015).
Getting the services of high quality education is the
right of every child. Education cannot show
discrimination to every child both in terms of service
and access. This means that education should be
inclusive and not exclusive.
Education must be given to both normal children
and children on the category of Children with Special
Needs and needs to get the support of all parties
including parents as the children’s closest
environment (Murray et al., 2013). This is consistent
with what Douglas Burnett and colleagues (2003)
have said that in dealing with children with special
needs, families are the most important part to make a
positive impact on the child's growth. The family can
provide support either mentally or psychologically to
the child because the child has given the trust to his
family.
Focus on early childhood special needs be a
differentiator of this study with previous research.
Unfortunately not every kindergarten teacher
understands who, the needs, and the type of services
that are right for children with special needs.
Receiving the same educational opportunities, but as
citizens they have the right to get a decent education
services and quality and are done together to make it
happen (Adams, Harris, and Jones, 2016). Giving
attention to the education of children, particularly in
early childhood is very important because this time
child time getting to know the school, the early age
groups, ages exploring, age asked, mimicking ages
and ages and ages creative play (Papalia, and Olds,
2008).
An important role of early childhood education in
education as a whole is the reason why early
childhood education can not be discriminatory; it was
definitely inclusive. This means that all children are
equal and entitled to their school without exception.
Agustin, M.
Analysis of Understanding the Dynamics of Kindergarten Teacher on Children with Special Needs.
In 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences (ICES 2017), pages 1011-1015
ISBN: 978-989-758-314-8
Copyright © 2017 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reser ved
1011

In providing services in early childhood, teachers are
a very important component in determining the
failure and success of a lesson. May (2011) affirms
that “teachers need to have insight, emotional control,
and also adaptability to help children learn so they can
help develop every aspect of child development.
However, actual education in kindergarten tends to
still leave many shortcomings such as persecution by
teachers in learning activities.” For example, teachers
impose learning to read, write and count to children
who are not ready to accept it, so children do not feel
comfortable learning in the classroom.
There is little education in an academically
oriented kindergarten by "forcing" reading, writing
and counting activities in a drill style. In addition,
coping for children with special needs is based on
field studies where there are many kindergarten
teachers who do not understand who the children are,
what their needs are, and also the appropriate
remedies that should be given to them, so that the
research is oriented on Analyzing the understanding
of kindergarten teachers Who apply inclusive
learning to children with special needs, they teach
with the aim of knowing the kindergarten teacher's
understanding of children with their special needs,
needs, and learning services provided to children with
special needs.
Based on the formulation of the problems that
have been described, it is necessary to limit the
research to make this research more focused. The
research limits are given as follows:
 This study is limited to the discussion of
children with special needs.
 Subject of research is kindergarten teacher.
 This research focuses on the understanding of
kindergarten teachers on the factors needed to
support the maximum development of children
with special needs.
2 METHOD
The method used in this case is Study Case, which is,
a study that is interested in what is, without any action
or deliberate control in order to get the causal
significance. This study more specifically observes
the characteristics of the individuals studied
(Alwasilah, 2015). The focus in this study is on the
dynamics of kindergarten teachers’ understanding of
children with special needs including an
understanding of who, needs and forms of service that
are right for them. This study took place in one of the
institutions of Early Childhood Education in Bandung
district, which implements the inclusion education,
but based on a preliminary study, found that teachers
who teach in these institutions are lacking an
understanding of children with special needs. The
number of teachers were used as research subjects
were three people from the teachers all six people.
Selection is based on academic qualifications of
teachers they have with the qualifications of teachers
have a university degree and two bachelor yet. Time
used in this study for one month at a time to the field
twice in a week. Interviews conducted at each
meeting lasts between 30 minutes to 60 minutes.
Stages in this study included preparation, i.e.
observing the place of research and interviews with
teachers and observing learning activities
implemented in kindergarten. The next phases were
implementation and data collection, in this stage
researchers used interviews as the main instrument
and observations as a support to capture data.
Creswell (2009) said that “the final stage was
analyzing data, by analyzing through reading and
continues reading the findings over and over so form
a pattern or categories that will be used as material for
analysis”.
3 RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results showed that there is a diversity of
understanding of children with special needs.
Question proposed research include an understanding
of who the children with special needs, the needs
children with special needs and the type of services
children with special needs. Kindergarten teachers'
understanding of who, the needs, and the type of
services for children with special needs can be seen
in Table 1 below.
ICES 2017 - 1st International Conference on Educational Sciences
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Table 1: Kindergarten teachers’ understanding about who, needs, and service of children with special needs are.
Kindergarten teachers’ understanding about Child with Special
Needs
Respondents
Who
Needs
Service
1
Child with special needs is a child
who has a physical and mentally
disability.
Child with special needs is a child
who needs special handling to
develop a child’s development
tasks.
Child with special needs is a child
who has limited focus or short
term memory.
Child with special needs is a child
with special needs in terms of
physical, psychological, and
mental.
Child with special needs,
needs motivation, attention,
affection and special
treatment.
Child with special needs need
stimulus and a long enough
time to develop the child’s
development tasks.
Their needs space to be able to
concentrate because of their
easily-broken concentration.
Giving attention, affection,
recognition, and specific
treatment which is given routine
and incidental to the children
with special needs
Providing activities that can
stimulate child development
tasks appropriately to help
developing areas of weakness.
Providing a variety of services
for each child and also adjusting
it to their needs.
Providing service activities to
practice concentration on
children with special needs such
as swimming, coloring, or
drawing.
(can see the child’s favorite
activities)
2
Child with special needs is a child
with autism,
Child with special needs is a child
who tends to have many
privileges.
Child with special needs is a child
who gives an inspirational figure
for educators and the public to
taste gratitude against the creator.
Not all children with special needs
are intellectually weak but in
certain areas they have many
advantages.
Their needs attention and
psychological comfort.
Their need of special treatment
psychologically and
attentively but not a few of
children with special needs are
taught self-reliance to face the
future so they could be
independent.
Giving attention, affection as a
friend to children and real
activities to develop children’s
potential.
Providing psychological support
for children with special needs
3
Child with special needs is a child
who experiences a shortage in the
area, physical, mental and
intellectual.
Child with special needs is a child
who experiences a lot of academic
obstacles both in the ability to
read, write, and calculate
Child with special needs is a child
who has concentration problems
that requires special handling
Their requires an area that
supports all their activities,
helps children’s physical and
mental health also of the
surrounding environment with
positive thoughts.
Their requires special
handling both in learning and
in social interactions that need
certain forms of treatment and
intervention
Giving love and attention to
children with special needs. Do
not neglect there.
Need to develop the ability of
teachers to provide appropriate
treatment for children’s needs.
Based on the data set forth in Table 1 above on the
perspective of who the children with special needs.
Generally the respondents perceive that children with
special needs is a child who has a physical shortage
of either disability or malfunction of certain body
parts. While others expressed the view that children
with special needs is experiencing weakness in the
areas of mental and intellectual. On the question of
the needs of children with special needs in general
respondents commented that the normal needs of
children with special needs children alike. Among
them requires motivation, affection, attention and
also urge ourselves to be able to be accepted. But on
the question of how the treatment of a proper
education given to children with special needs,
general the respondents answered that they did not
know the exact form of services provided to them.
During this time they give lessons to their treatment
is almost the same as the normal children. This is
because they have a lack of information and insight
Analysis of Understanding the Dynamics of Kindergarten Teacher on Children with Special Needs
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about the form of activities, methods and strategies
given to children with special needs. Based on the
data presented in the results of the study it appears
that there is already true understanding of who tend
to special needs children but still need additional
information. Teachers also have an understanding
that the love, attention and motivation is an important
component of the needs of children with special
needs. This is in line with the opinion of Kellett
(2010) which stated that “Students, especially
children with special needs not only need the intake
of material from educators but also more than that,
they need intake of affection. Other than love their
also need a role model and exemplary. “
As for the respondents’ answers that they do not
have the sufficient ability and insight/knowledge to
provide treatment for their learning reflect that
teachers need knowledge, insight and appropriate
techniques to provide services to children with special
needs appropriately and correctly. In addition,
teachers also need to involve parents in providing
services to children, causing similar perspective in
providing services, and so the communicating error
doesn’t occur. Including introducing a closest culture
to the child’s life because in some cases the errors in
communication happen due different understanding
of behavior due to different cultural backgrounds
(Wright and Taylor, 2014; Kalyanpur, Harry and
Skrtic, 2010; Anderson et al., 2010; Gay, 2010).
4 CONCLUSIONS
The result show that to develop the skills of teachers
of kindergarten in providing treatment appropriate
learning for children with special needs, the next
kindergarten teachers also need to acquire minimal
skills are very practical to help provide the best
service even though it is still minimal for children
with special needs in kindergarten where they teach.
This research is far from perfect. Therefore,
researchers suggest in the next research can be
focused in terms of maximizing the development and
growth of children with special needs. There are still
some factors that can support the development of
children with special needs that are not described in
this study due to lack of self researchers.
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