Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
ÖZEL GEREKSİNİMLİ BİREYLERİN BİLGİYE ERİŞİMİ: DİSİPLİNLER ARASI ÇALIŞMALAR ve GÜNCEL YAKLAŞIMLAR, Doç. Dr. Pervin Bezirci,Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Leyla Kanık,Dr. Erdinç Alaca,Dr. Gülcan Palo,Dr. Demet Soylu, Editör, Hiperyayın, İstanbul, ss.457-478, 2022
As a neurodevelopmental disorder, autism negatively affects
children’s social behavior, communication development, and also their response
to sensory stimuli. The equivalent of these negative effects in daily life
generally manifests itself as follows;
■ Having
a tendency not listen to people who want to communicate with them
■ Making
very little eye contact with people who want to communicate with them
■ Having
movements, gestures, or facial expressions that don’t
match what’s being said
■ Having
difficulty in understanding another’s point of
view or predicting other people’s actions
■ Having
unusual behavior, such as repeating certain words or phrases
■ Having
repetitive routines and worrying about changes in these routines
■ Having
difficulties in organizing, sorting, and prioritizing
■ Being
more or less sensitive than another individual to various sensory inputs such
as light and noise.
The solution that will make it easier for children with
autism to overcome their problems is education and training, especially
therapy. Public and child librarians should have a social role and
responsibility in ensuring the socialization of children with autism in the
context of education and training. Because “children with autism can learn many
of the behaviors, skills and knowledge that typical children can learn through
play and socialization, thanks to the variety of library programs offered by
public and children’s librarians”.
This study has demonstrated that public and children’s
librarians can help many issues of children with autism, especially social
communication and interaction issue, by providing many services such as sensory
storytime, sensory- friendly movie screening and Rover-type reading.
However, in order for librarians to provide the
above-mentioned library services to children with autism, they should receive
an appropriate training. Thanks to this training, it can be said that
librarians working in public and children’s libraries can have the following
gains;
■ Better
communication with library users with autism.
Awareness of
children with autism, especially the lack of eye contact and less verbal
communication.
■ Having
knowledge about how to develop a library collection suitable for children with
autism
Selection of
suitable books that will appeal to the interests of children with autism
Selection of
interactive toy-like books that appeal to the senses of touch and smell, and
especially sound
Selection of
books with predictable text, repetitive lines
Selection of
books in which the illustrations are large, organized and easy to understand
Selection of
toys that contribute to increasing the skills and abilities of children with
autism
Selection of
computer games suitable for children with autism
■
Specializing in a sensory storytime activity for children with autism and their
families in the library. Thus, librarians can help children participating in
the storytime activity to socialize with the help of various tools and activities
such as story, song and movement.
■
Specializing in the sensory-friendly film events for children with autism and
their families in the library. Thus, librarians can provide opportunities for
children and their parents participating in the sensory-friendly film events to
watch appropriate films in a safe environment. In particular, the selection of
films about the experiences of individuals with special needs is meaningful.
■ Having
knowledge about how to prepare sensory rooms in the library
■ Having
knowledge about how to collaborate with various government agencies and
non-governmental organizations that support children and families with autism.