The Experiences Of Peers With Special Needs At School From The Perspective Of Primary School Students

It is aimed to determine the situations experienced by their peers with special needs at school from the perspective of children with typical development in primary school. Children with special needs to integrate with the society and gain independent living skills, their school life must be carried out successfully. The opinions and awareness of their peers about these students are important for the success of the school life of students with special needs. Having knowledge of the needs, problems and wishes of their friends with special needs will strengthen the communication between children, and thus the adaptation of students with special needs to school life will be facilitated. 86 students studying in a primary school participated in the research. Document analysis technique, which is one of the qualitative research methods, was used in the study. The research was carried out with the RAFT technique. RAFT is a writing technique created by combining the first letters of the words Role (role), Audience (audience), Format (form), Topic (subject). The instructions were given to the participants: "Imagine that you are a student with special needs and tell your best friend about the situations you may experience in the classroom with a letter", and the second instruction "Imagine that you are a student with special needs and write your needs at school to the school administration with a petition".The results showed that typically developing children generally have a negative perception of the experiences of peers with special needs at school. Typically developing children approached the problems experienced by their special needs peers at school with an empathetic perspective. It has been seen that they produce realistic solutions that can be applied with the petitions they have written.