The opinions of special education teachers working with children with autism in Eskişehir about their problems and the solutions of the suggestions while working with them

The purpose of the present study was to analyze the opinions of special education teachers working with children with autism about their problems and the suggestions of the solutions while working with them. The study was designed qualitatively and semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 voluntary teachers working in different institutions in Eskisehir. A semi-structured interview form was prepared for the interviews. The interviews were conducted separately on different days, places and time suitable for the particpants and the interviews were audio-recorded. The records were scripted and analyzed using descriptive techniques and the findings of the study were presented quantitatively. The results of the study indicated that all the teachers stated that they didn?t take courses about autistic children during their bachelor education and also many teachers mentioned that they attended some seminars and in-service courses. The opinions of the teachers differed from each other about the chracteristics of autistic children. The teacher?s opinions about the adaptations they made, the intervention techniques they used, the things they did about the functional usage in daily life skills were different from each other. They declared different views about the skills that the autistic children had difficulty in acquiring. All the teachers mentioned that they wished to be informed about the intervention techniques used in the recent research and also that they needed to take the support services. The findings of the study provided many suggestions about the teachers? working with autistic children. The most recognized suggestion derived from the findings was that there should be courses about the intervention techniques to be used with autistic children in the Departments of Special Education. Moreover, the support services should be put in place to help the families of autistic children and these services should be evaluated.