Examination of teacher, administrative and parent's opinions on education of primary school students with autism during the epidemic process

The aim of this research is to determine and examine the views of parents, teachers and administrators on distance education of students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and continuing their education in a first-level special education practice school during the COVID-19 epidemic period, and to compare these views from different perspectives. In order to find answers to the research questions, 10 special education teachers, 4 administrators and 10 parents who work with students who are in the province of Karabük and continue to the first level with autism, who agreed to participate in the research voluntarily, were interviewed. The research was designed with a phenomenological approach, one of the qualitative research method designs. At the same time, data were collected by semi-structured interview technique. Semi-structured questions asked to all three participant groups were analyzed by content analysis. In the research findings, it was stated that the epidemic process greatly affected children with autism negatively. In the light of the findings, the similarities and differences of the views of the groups were revealed. These findings were discussed in the light of the literature and suggestions were made for future research as well as applications.