Facilitators and Barriers to Inclusion for Children with Disabilities in Early Childhood Education and Care Settings in Australia: A Scoping Review

Objective:
The overall objective of this scoping review is to map the available evidence available regarding facilitators and barriers to inclusion for children with disabilities in Early Childhood Education and Care(ECEC)settings within the Australian context.

Introduction:
Both internationally, and within Australia, inclusive practices to support children with disability in mainstream education settings has been the focus of legislation and policy in recent years. It is recognised that children who attend quality ECEC settings(e.g. long daycare, family daycare, kindergarten and outside
JBI Evidence Synthesis Page | 2school hours care)demonstrate improvedlong-termoutcomes.However, children with disabilities attend ECEC settings at a lower rate than typically developing peers and often do not experience inclusion. There is limited evidence regarding the facilitators and barriers to inclusion for children with disabilities in ECEC settings, especially in the Australian context.

Inclusion criteria:
Thís scoping review will include articles considering inclusion for children with a disability who are enrolled in ECEC settings within the Australian context. English only documents, published between January 2009 and April2023that discuss inclusion in ECEC settings in Australia for children with disabilities will be included. Publications of all study designs and publication types, including grey literature, focusing on inclusion in daycare, or kindergarten settings within the Australian context, will be included.

Methods:
This review will be completed using the Johanna Briggs Institute Methodology for scoping reviews, which is aligned with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for scoping reviews (PRISMA-ScR)checklist. Study selection will be presented using a PRISMA-ScR flow diagram. Data will be extracted using a data extraction tool and results will be presented descriptively,in a tabular format, and summarised narratively.