engleski

Early intervention between medicine and education

Philosophical approach coherent with disability studies scrutinize the construction of disability, and its implications to educational system. According to Foucaultian perspective, disability is interpreted as a social construct, and a question of societal power, with strong individual repercussions, resulting with one's marginalisation and exclusion. This critical perspective on disability is derived form human rights, and it helped educational practitioners and scholars to design developmentally appropriate support for children with disability, starting from early years. Early intervention, as one of the supportive domain in rehabilitation sciences, facilitates implementation of the basic (medical) procedures such as screening and therapy in the early education. Although social model of disability, and model of human rights are considered suitable for the educational system, the question of their sufficiency is rising. Can preschool teachers provide support for children with disabilities or for children at risk, without any medical background? In other words, can a preschool teachers design developmentally appropriate support for without any medical knowledge of its own, and without any cooperation with medical experts such as pediatricians? Some individuals have concerns about this kind of questioning, claiming it can revive medical model, abandoned some 40 years ago. Other think that preschool teachers do need basic medical knowledge, at least at the level of understanding medical procedures and terminology, as a starting point for designing individual educational plans, and also for efficient communication with families. This paper will offer a theoretical discussion about the connection between early intervention and medicine in the context of early education.

early intervention; preschool education; medical canon of knowledge; teaching strategies

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