The purpose of this study is to examine and compare kindergarten and special kindergarten teachers' perceptions of their own competence in early childhood special education (ECSE) in Finnish day care. This comparison is based on the kindergarten teachers' and special kindergarten teachers' self-evaluation. Teachers evaluated their theoretical and practical ECSE competence. The research questionnaire consisted of six ECSE working areas. The aim of this study is to integrate theory and practice, and participation in expert culture by bringing educational research and practical education closer to each other. The results reported here imply that the respondents evaluate their theoretical and practical ECSE competence to be better than moderate; the test reliability was quite high. Special kindergarten teachers assess their knowledge competence more highly than kindergarten teachers. Teachers ranked their practical competence higher than their theoretical competence. (Contains 3 tables and 1 note.)