Theoretical analysis of items from an American scale for assessment of inclusive kindergartens in Brazil

With the proposal of an inclusive early childhood education, it is necessary mechanisms to evaluate the quality of the education for infants and toddlers with special needs. The Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale Revised was developed to evaluate the quality of collective environments of child education under different aspects as surrounding physicist, interaction, activity and provisions to the children with special needs. Studies are investigating the viability of the scale for Brazilian context. In the direction of these studies, the research had as objective verify the understanding and the relevancy of the content of itens of the Infant/Toddler Environment Rating Scale - Revised Edition that deal with people with disabilities. It had been identified and translated 12 itens of the scale by a bilingual specialist. Then, it had been submitted to the content analysis for seven female specialists in child and special education, so that they evaluated the relevancy of itens, and to the semantic analysis for seven pupils of the course of psychology so that they evaluated the clearly and the understanding of itens, in both the cases registering in protocols. The data had been transcribed and analyzed in a qualitative way. The results had indicated that itens are pertinents and points ways to increase the accuracy with respect to future studies. Concludes that itens of the scale analyzed can contribute for the promotion and evaluation of the quality in early childhood centers but it is still necessary to work towards improve the accuracy of the content of itens.