특수교육지원센터에서의 다문화가정 아동 진단·평가 실태 및 지원 요구

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to investigate the current status of diagnosis, evaluation process, and demands of the Special Education Support Center (SESC) for personnel who have experience in diagnosing and evaluating children from multicultural families. To this end, questionnaires were developed and distributed online to the personnel at the SESC; a total of 39 answers were collected. The results of this analysis are as follows. First, the diagnostic evaluation process has been conducted as an individual effort of the personnel without specific guidelines and standards to identify children from multicultural families. However, resources and supports were insufficient across all aspects; this included collecting various pre-referral information, supporting active parent participation, determining dominant languages, composing a multidisciplinary team, and building the personnel’s expertise in the diagnostic evaluation process. Second, the personnel had difficulties dealing with communication with multicultural families; furthermore, they pointed out a problem to refer the children from multicultural families to SESC without any efforts to implement pre-referral intervention. In addition, it was difficult to compose a multidisciplinary team including multicultural experts due to a lack of recognition regarding the importance of the team for children of multicultural families. Third, the personnel requested supports for effective communication with multicultural families; additionally, they wanted legal basis, specific guidelines, and systematic pre-referral intervention systems. The personnel requested professional development programs about children with disabilities from multicultural families; including programs that combine theoretical and practical knowledge, as well as a collaboration system between SESC and multicultural-related institutions to support reliable diagnosis and evaluation of children from multicultural families. Based on these results, practical implications and future research were discussed.