Problems experienced by special educated individuals and their families during the COVID 19 outbreak and solution proposals

The aim of this study is to identify the problems experienced by children and their families who continue to receive education in special education and rehabilitation centers during the Covid-19 pandemic and to offer solutions to their problems. 100 children and their mothers who were educated in special education and rehabilitation centers in Çatalca and Beylikdüzü districts of Istanbul province, were included in this study. In the study, a 20-question survey was used to determine the problems experienced by children in need of special education and their families during the first four months of the lockdown period in Turkey. Families were asked to answer the questions by considering the problems experienced by both their children and themselves. In addition to questions about the problems experienced by the child and their families, In addition to questions about the problems experienced by children and their families, this survey also includes questions about the age, gender and medical diagnoses of children. IBM SPSS (IBM Corp., Version 26.0 for Windows) was used for statistical analysis in the study. Categorical data are summarized by number and percentage statistics. The relations between categorical variables were analyzed with the Chi- square test. In order to obtain reliable statistics in the chi-square table, the answer options for the questions were combined and the exact p values were calculated. When the findings obtained as a result of the study are evaluated; It has been determined that children have educational retardation and the most common areas of retardation are communication skills and perception. In this process, it has been observed that there are physical changes in the parents and most of them had gained weight. During this period, it was determined that most of the parents experienced economic problems and feared that they and their children would be infected with the virus. In addition, it has been determined that the negative effects of the process on parents lead to depression and intra-familial conflicts. In the comparison results by gender, a significant difference was found in the second question "Do you think your child is more aggressive in this process?", but there was no statistically significant difference in other questions. No statistically significant difference was found in the comparison results according to age groups.