TEACHERS’ ATTITUDE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SOCIO-EMOTIONAL COMPETENCIES AT CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Autism is a developmental disorder of neurobiological origin and is considered one of the most severe neuropsychiatric childhood disorders. It is manifested by: the decrease in social relations, the reduction of communication power, the restriction of activities, repetitive and stereotypical interests and activities (DSM-IV). Competencies are defined, according to the Law of National Education, as "a multifunctional and transposable assembly of knowledge, abilities and skills necessary in different situations". Art. 13 of this law emphasizes that lifelong learning is a guaranteed right for all children; the development of socio-emotional competencies thus becomes a major educational target. The purpose of this study is to investigate the strategies that develop socio-emotional competencies and their use by teachers, who have students with autism spectrum disorders in their classroom. A number of 50 teachers from the primary cycle filled in a questionnaire structured in three parts: emotional recognition, acceptance and self-regulation; social networking and social problem solving. The socio-emotional education includes all the learning activities that lead to the acquisition of individual experience of social and emotional behaviour, the formation of emotional and social competencies. Thus, children acquire emotional abilities: to understand, express and regulate emotions and social skills: to initiate and maintain a relationship and to integrate in a social group. The results have shown that the strategies of socio-emotional development among teachers are poorly developed, and this is directly proportional to the inclusion of children with autism. We have identified the need for training in terms of development strategies used for socio-emotional competencies among teachers.