Examination of special education teachers' opinions on teaching personal protective measures to individuals with autism spectrum disorder during the Covid-19 pandemic process

The aim of the study is to determine the opinions of special education teachers working with students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) about teaching personal protective measures during the COVID-19 pandemic process. The participant group consists of 20 special education teachers working with individuals with OSB, affiliated to the Ministry of National Education (MEB). The data of the research, which was carried out with a phenomenological design, one of the qualitative research approaches, were collected with the researcher's diary and semi-structured interview questions and analyzed with content analysis. In the findings obtained from the research, the teachers stated that being away from the society due to the COVID-19 pandemic measures increased the behavior and social interaction problems of their students. Most of the teachers explained the term personal protective measures as COVID-19 pandemic measures, and most of the new personal protective measures that came into our lives were expressed as mask use and social distance rule. Most of the teachers stated that the students included personal protective measures in their individualized education programs and they taught the use of hand/face washing and mask/visor from these measures. Although the opinions of the teachers on the method vary, most of them stated that they use the methods of being a model and being a video model. Most of the teachers stated that they carried out informative activities to families. A correlation was made between the findings obtained from the research and the findings obtained in the literature review, and suggestions were made to the practitioners and researchers.