Efficiency of Montessori method

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the efficiency of Montessori Method in disabled and nondisabled preschool children. For this purpose, a total of 15 children, consisting of one hyperactive child, one child diagnosed with autism and 13 non-disabled children under "Inclusive Project for Disabled and Nondisabled Preschoolers" financed by European Union has been included into the study and they have been given Montessori education for a period of two months. Descoeudres Dictionary Test, Dictionary and Language Test, Peabody Picture Word Test and Denver II Developmental Scanning Test have been applied to the children in the beginning and end of the study, which was designed with an experimental single group pretest ' final test model, and daily observations have been made for two months. According to the results of this study, a meaningful difference has been reported between the pretest ' final test t test results of Descoeudres Dictionary Test, Dictionary and Language Test, Peabody Picture Word Test while pretest results of Denver II Developmental Scanning Test showed that 10 of nondisabled children were normal and 3 of them were found to be questionable, and the result of the hyperactive child was reported as abnormal while the result of the autistic child was found as being untestable. In terms of the final test results for Denver II Developmental Scanning Test, test results of all of the nondisabled children were reported as normal and they were observed to be capable of achieving advanced articles; the test result of the hyperactive child was found to be normal while the autistic child was observed to have reached development level in conformity with his/her age in terms of personal- social and fine and gross motor skills and that this child could achieve some of the language articles while failing in others. As a result of the daily observations made for a period of two months, excessive activity, aprosexia, anxiety, and failure in following directives, frequent crying, being offended and aggression were observed initially in hyperactive and autistic children while such behaviors were reported to be reduced significantly after the Montessori education. Achievement of such results in disabled and nondisabled children gives the impression that Montessori Method is efficient.