The purpose of this study was to examine in the scope of the recent literature the Reciprocal Imitation Training (Ingersoll, 2008), which was suggested to be effective in teaching imitation skills to children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Firstly, theoretical foundations of Reciprocal Imitation Training (RIT) are explained; secondly, RIT techniques and its implementation steps are introduced. Thirdly, findings of the related research which examines effectiveness of RIT on acquisition or spontaneous use of imitation skills of children with ASD were discussed. Lastly, suggestions for practitioners and for research about teaching imitation skills to children with ASD in Turkey are made in the direction of the current literature.

This study aimed to investigate recognition of emotions via (facial expressions, posture/gestures, voice and social stories) in children with learning disabilities comparing to their peers with typical development. The participants were 3rd, 4th or 5th graders consisting 120 children in total. Sixty of these were children with learning disabilities and 60 were children with typical development. Data were gathered by using the Test of Perception of Affect Via Nonverbal Cues (TPANC) developed by the researchers. Childeren were asked to name emotions including (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, amazement, and disgust) in the test. Results showed that children with learning disabilities performed significantly lower and slower in naming emotions than their peers. Happiness in facial expressions and social stories subtests was received the highest number of correct answers by all children. Fear in facial expressions was often confused with amazement. While anger was recognized most easily via voice, fear was recognized most easily via gesture/posture. The results are discussed further on the basis of previous findings and recommendations are presented.

In this study, it was aimed to examine reading comprehension and summarizing skills of successful and unsuccessful students in reading comparatively. Their morphosyntax knowledge (Mean Length of UtteranceMLU) and vocabulary knowledge (Different Words Used-DWU) in their written summaries were also compared in the study. In addition, the relations between their reading comprehension scores, summarizing scores, MLU and DWU were examined. For this purpose, 122 successful and 122 unsuccessful readers, totally 244 fourth graders participated in the study. Findings showed that poor readers failed more than their peers in answering all the question types. However, it was determined that both student groups had the most difficulty in finding the main idea of the text and answering inferential questions requiring the use of personal knowledge and experience. It was seen that the poor readers had more difficulties than their peers in all summarizing subskills, also MLU and DWU measurements. When the effects of summarizing, MLU and DWU on total comprehension score were examined, it was found that MLU was the best predictor to comprehension.

Need for change in general education and special education have become a must. The discussion about the characteristics of a new teacher model brings out the issue of being able to improve themselves, change their own decisions based on the variables, and assess their own performance. The discussion about having developed meta-cognitive skills are raised in the literature. This study aimed to determine the meta-cognitive awareness of special education teacher candidates. Beside that, the correlation between meta-cognitive awarenes and academic success, the differences among the groups based on selected variables also examined. The results yielded that there is negative correlation between student success and meta-cognitive awareness. Also, the groups differed based on the variables that are grade point average (GPA), grade level and high school graduation.

In this study, it aimed to put forward teachers opinions who works in an elemantary school in Eskisehir about Individualized Education Programme (IEP), legal arrangement and inclusion implementations. Teachers branches consist of classroom teachers, special education teachers, pre-school teachers, English teachers and guidance teachers. Data of the study were collected with 17 volunteer teachers via semi-structured interviews and for this, appropriate questions were prepared and used. The interviews were lasted between five to 21 minutes in changing times. After conducting the interviews, data were analyzed descriptively. Problems in the education of students with special needs were more likely; not held classes for students with special needs of the present, lack of educational evaluation diagnostic and placement, not informed enough people in the process, parents disavowal children’s special status of, which concentrates on exhibit negative attitudes and behavior towards students with special needs and students with normal development. In this study has also obtained teachers have general information about individualized education program, fulfillment of the responsibilities in the individualized education program and development process and provided to special needs the necessary support from the school board members and guidance service. Results of the study emerged some suggestions: Decreasing the number of students in the inclusive classes, making physical, instructional and behavioral adaptations, correcting educational assessment, placement and diagnosis processes, providing information to the people in the inclusion process, increasing the number of support rooms in the schools are some of the suggestions which are thought to make the inclusion implementations more accomplished.

In this study, effectiveness of simultaneous prompting teaching procedure on teaching coins (1 Turkish Liras and, 50 coins, 25 coins, 10coins, 5 coins) to students with intellectual disabilities by a peer with intellectual disabilities was investigated. Multiple probe models with probe condition across subjects which is one of the single subject research designs, was used for this research 3 peer tutees with intellectual disabilities who are between the ages of 12 and 13 and 1 peer tutor with mild intellectual disabilities at the age of 16 attended to this study. Dependent variable of the study is the skills which is students with intellectual disabilities telling or pointing coins when coins are shown or asked. Independent variable is an intellectual disability peer delivered simultaneous prompting method. At the end of the study (1) mild intellectual peer tutor applied peer delivered simultaneous prompting method reliably for instructing coins their tutees with intellectual disabilities (2) using peer delivered simultaneous prompting method is effective in teaching (telling or pointing) coins for students with intellectual disabilities, (3) the students have protected gained skills five days, seven days and ten days after the end of intervention (4) the students can generalize telling or pointing coins to different teachers and mothers were found. In this research social validity findings showed that all of the special education teachers gave positive feedbacks for the study.

Williams Syndrome is a neuro-developmental disorder, which is caused by a deletion in a certain chromosome. Prevalence of Williams Syndrome is low and there is limited number of studies on Williams Syndrome both in our country and abroad. The purpose of this study is to determine experiences and difficulties of parents who have children with Williams Syndrome. It is a qualitative study. Five parents of children with Williams Syndrome were participated in the study. Data collected through semi structured interview via phone calls. Data were analyzed descriptively, with thematic analysis. According to findings of the study, all participants consider having a child with Williams Syndrome as a hard experience and they also have concerns for the future. Especially, problematic behaviors induced as main difficulties. Besides that, educators and health professionals’ lack of knowledge and information, negative attitudes and inadequate services that they recieved become prominent difficulties. Additionally, the shortage of written resources and difficulties on accessing to information were obtained as findings.

The aim of this study is to review thesis and articles on physical activities of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) published between 2004 and 2014 in Turkey and in the world. Council of Higher Education (YÖK) National Thesis Center, The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey National Academic Network and Information Center (TÜBITAK ULAKBIM), EbscoHost, Proquest Dissertations and Theses Global, SAGE and SpringerLink databases were searched for this study and 16 thesis and 33 articles published in peer-reviewed journals were reached about the subject. Obtained studies were reviewed in four categories. There were six studies in “Comparison of physical activities of individuals with ASD” category, 26 studies in “Impact of physical activity program on individuals with ASD” category, six studies in “Opinions of families and teachers about physical activity” category, and 11 studies in “Identification and improvement of quality of physical activity programs” category. Results yielded that physical activity makes positive contributions to the development of individuals with ASD, studies conducted in our country focus on the impact of physical activity, and there is a need for studies on topics including nature of the physical activity programs and comparison of physical activity levels with individuals with different disability categories.