Abstract:

Interrelations between education professionals and parents of children with disabilities appear to constitute a complex matrix of attitudes and conflicts (Kayama, & Haight, 2014). Within this matrix, professionals’ perception of parents needs further clarification. The current study seeks this clarification by focusing on the professionals who interact with children with ASD most intensively—preschool teachers. The research questions are: How do preschool teachers of children with disabilities perceive the role of parents of children with ASD in their work, and how does this perception affect the teachers’ feelings? A qualitative constructivist perspective was chosen for this study. Thirty-six preschool teachers of children with disabilities took part. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were used. The responses were analyzed using the grounded-theory approach (Strauss & Corbin, 1990).

The teachers attributed four roles to themselves and to their pupils’ parents:
Teacher as trainer, parent as apprentice. Teachers viewed parents as apprentices who should obey their instructions. The narrative goes this way: Work in the preschool is highly complex and entails much knowledge, insight, and professional skill. Parents lack the skills to care for their children and therefore must do as the teachers say and follow their instructions to the end (“I also train parents … in order to teach parents how to spend time with their children”).
Teacher as therapist, parent as patient. The teachers sought to produce the following narrative: Teachers are therapists and parents are perceived as potential patients, toward whom teachers were to be considerate and understanding. (“We really are therapists”).

Teacher as service provider, parent as customer. Teachers saw themselves as providing services to parents who, accordingly, they regarded as customers. These roles fit into the following narrative: Only teachers are possessors of the appropriate professional knowledge. Parents, not so blessed, receive education and childcare services from the teachers and thereby are their customers (“After they put together a personal program of study, the staff meets with the parents and obtain their approval”).

Teacher and parent as full partners. According to the narrative that accommodated this outlook, teachers and parents have the same goal—the child’s advancement—and pledge their personal and professional resources to it. (“Parents should be made to feel that we’re working with the children together”).
The teachers expected parents to adhere to the roles that they had assigned them and to the narrative they had created, thus validating and amplifying their own roles.

When the parents accepted these roles, the teachers’ positive experiences improved their outlook, validated their own roles, and made them feel empowered. When parents did not adopt the roles the teachers assigned them, the latter responded with feelings of anger, helplessness, and professional failure. It would therefore seem that for teachers, the main role of parents is to help them reflect on their roles and, by so doing, reinforce their professional capabilities. This study is important because of what it reveals about the processes that underlie the interaction between teachers and parents of children with ASD and their effect on teachers’ wellbeing.

Keywords:

Parents, autism spectrum disorder, preschool teachers.