Abstract:

The “Proposal for key principles of a Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education and Care” (European Commission, 2014) considers the development of new approaches based on evidence as pivotal to improve quality in early childhood education. Designing an inclusive curriculum in today’s schools may be challenging considering the heterogeneity of students’ needs and this becomes more complex when considering pre-schoolers with ASD (Handleman, Harris, 2001). Teachers need to identify individual learning goals and objectives, select suitable resources and create an appropriate environment that promotes interaction among peers. The Group-based Early Start Denver Model (G-ESDM; Vivanti et al., 2017) provides a developmental curriculum checklist of the Early Start Denver Model (Dawson, Rogers, 2010), an evidence-based model whose principles and teaching strategies promote the development of children with ASD. Studies on the adoption of the G-ESDM in inclusive and special schools (Vivanti et al., 2019) showed feasibility for both the context and its principles and the strategies seem to fit with the Italian inclusive school system (Agrillo, Zappalà, Aiello, 2020; Aiello et al., 2019). On the basis of these reflections, the study aims at investigating the teachers’ opinions on the adoption of the G-ESDM curriculum checklist in Italian preschools.

Keywords:

Curriculum design, Autism Spectrum Disorder, inclusive school, teachers professional development.