1. Acknowledgement of children with special needs and the timefactor in preschool teachers work Suzanne Krogh and Søren Smidt Centre for Higher Education Copenhagen, Denmark

2. Theoretical framework The child is an active communicating subject living in certain socio-cultural conditions, e.g. institutionalization The childs well-being and functioning depends on the relations and interactions in their everydaylife The preschool teachers experiences and concepts of the children has an impact of how they communicate and relate to the children

3. Children with special needs All children are like all other children All children are like some other children All children are like no one other children

4. Children with special needs Well-being - how they is Function - how they do Acute Periodical Permanent

5. Empirical study Action- and researchproject 8 daycare-institutions 1 home daycare-center Children between 0-6 years

6. Purpose The actionproject: To increase the preschool teachers competencies to take care of and acknowledge the children with special needs in an inclusive perspective

7. Purpose The Research-project: To increase our knowledge of how the preschool teachers experience the children with special needs, and how they handle this children?

8. Methods Observations Interviews Narratives

9. Result The preschool teachers experience the children with special needs as very time- consuming: ”We haven´t time enough to handle this children appreciative. There are also all the other Children”.

10. Interpretative frame: Mutual recognition Understanding and familiarization: The ability to decentrate and change perspektive, to sense and feel whats going on in other people Openness : The ablility to investigate what is going on in other people with an open mind. What does she feel, experience, mean, wants e.g. Affirmation: The ability to share or meet the childs experience and feelings. To show the child that you know what it feels and experience. Selfreflection and selfdelimitation: The ability to reflect upon our self, upon what we do and what we say and what we don’t do and say and what going on inside your self. The ability to seperate us selv from the other. (Bae 1996 and 2004)

11. Data ”It is morning and Sofie has just arrived the daycare and her father has just left. Sofie is crying.She is alone in her classroom. We were yet only 2 adults. I said to her that she should go into the other classroom (where the other childen and the adults were sitting at the morningtable). She was now crying even more. After some time trying to get her speaking to me, she finally said to me that she was sad because she coulden’t get a chair down from the table by her own. So she had lost the possiblity to wave goodbye to her father.

12. Data I said to her: ”He is gone now, so it is of no help you are crying now”. She was now crying even more. After some time I began to think what we recently had learned about the importance of taking the childs perspective. I now said to her: ”Are you sad because you didn’t wave goodbye to your daddy?” Pause. ”I´m thinking that you maybe didn´t want to go to kindergarten to day, and that you are missing your daddy?”. ”Do you?”.

13. Data Now she was looking at me, nodding, and quietly she told me that Arne (her big brother who is permanently ill) was at the hospital again. I stroke her hair and said to her: ”Of course you are sad”. We stood together for a little while, looking out of the window. Then she took my hand, and we went to the classroom together. The first part took at least ten minutes or more. The last part took two minutes.”

14. Data In this episode the preschool teacher ends up understanding Sofie and showing her that her feelings and experience is meaningfull and Sofie can now go further on.

15. Result However this mutual recognition is not present in most episodes in the datamaterial. Overall there is a tendency of lack of mutual recognition from the preschool teachers to the children with special needs.

16. Result Mutual recognition gives time – lack of mutual recognition takes time