Abstract
The purpose of this questionnaire survey is to gather information on actual conditions of inclusive child day-care in K City in order to qualify what support we can provide as part of the community. The questionnaire was sent to 148 child-care facilities (day nurseries) in date, of which 116 provided sufficient data for analysis. Of these 116 facilities, 104 (89.7%) accepted children with disabilities, while 12 (10.3%) did not. The number of disabled children accepted by the 104 facilities over a 2.5-year period was 275. Mental retardation (including children with multiple disabilities) was the most common type of disability; autism, physical disability and cerebral palsy were also seen. Thus, nursery staff, whose training is largely geared toward education and child development, is faced with a particularly difficult task. What we envisage as one of our future roles is to train and provide nursing experts with a specialized knowledge of medical rehabilitation, day-to-day medical care, training and support of children with various types of disabilities. Such nurses could then be introduced to child day-care facilities to provide individualized child-care services, which would take into account all factors relating to the child's condition and developmental stage. The results of our survey also suggest that close coordination and partnership with specialized/related agencies and institutions should be pursued in order to both enrich the support systems of child day-care facilities and to enhance their inclusiveness.
