Teachers’ background diversity on the early intervention service of special education centers in Thailand

Abstract

Special Education Centers (SECs) are public educational establishments whose role is to provide early intervention (EI) services to children with special needs. There are currently 77 locations throughout Thailand. A recent study found that SECs encounter teacher transfer problems every year, which affects the efficiency of their EI services. This study explored the reality of EI service and the diversity of teachers’ backgrounds on EI service of SECs in Thailand. The result of an in-depth interview form for 18 executives showed that most SECs provide services in several stages, which include general data collection, educational disabilities screening, basic abilities assessment, individualized education plan preparation (IEP/IFSP), provision services with suitable activities, progress assessment, and conducting supervision, monitoring, evaluation, and referral. The most problematic issue of EI service is the diversity of teachers’ disciplines. In addition, the result of a questionnaire for 426 teachers showed that teachers had a variety of backgrounds, especially in their graduate majors at bachelor’s degree for over 15 majors. Factors of background diversity that affect the implementation of EI service includes: health problems or congenital disease, SECs in current operation, place of service, and responsibilities, which affect each step of the EI service process at a significantly high level of 0.05. However, not all differences in teacher backgrounds will affect EI service delivery.