Transcript University of Thessaly WCLTA2012

UNIVERSITY OF THESSALY
GREECE
3rd WCLTA
25-28 OCTOBER 2012 BRUSSELS- BELGIUM
Can typical students define the word
“disability”? A pilot study about their
knowledge or misconceptions
Marina Louari
[email protected]
• Disabled students are being integrated into
the regular school environment
• Inclusion depends on positive attitudes and
interaction between typical students and
those with disabilities
• Behavioural and emotional problems
emerge because of rejection
• Acceptance and friendships with peers
influence positively children’s behaviour
When an intervention program is
implemented:
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attitudes turn to be more favourable
increase awareness of disabilities
remove prejudices
provide opportunities for social interaction
Children’s perception of the word
‘disability’ has rarely been studied
For that reason, this study has been
designed in order to:
•
•
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investigate typical students’ concepts
examine the existence of misconceptions
clarify misconceptions
eliminate bias
• Sample:Eighty-five, 9-11 years old,
students participated
• Instrument:
a)12 pictures (vignettes) which depicted
boys and girls, with or without disabilities. A
short text accompanied every picture and
there was the same question in every set
“Is this child a child with disability?
b)interviews
Results
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95.2% physical disability
58.8% mental retardation
58.8% Down syndrome
52.9% blindness
50.6% hearing impairment
41.2% autism
45.9% identified a girl with a broken leg as
disabled
• 22.4% thought obese boys were disabled
Is this child a disabled child?
90
80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
yes
no
Blindness
Physical
Disabilities
Mental
Retardation
Autism
Hearing
Impairment
Down
Syndrome
Interviews verified previous results
• They explained that the girl with broken leg
is disabled because “she can’t move and
she must have crutches or she must sit on
a wheelchair”.
• Also, according to students’ beliefs, “obese
boys are disabled because they cannot
move properly and they cannot participate
in playground games”.
• They believed that mental retardation and
the Down syndrome was the same.
• They must attend a special school because
“they cannot understand mathematics or
learn history”.
• “A special education school is the best
solution for those children”
• “There, there are children who face the
same problems and have the same
abilities”
• “There, they have the opportunity to make
friends”
• “In general education school they cannot
have friends”
• Typical students believed that sensory
impairments “are a kind of illness not
disability”and “an experienced doctor may
help them”. “Otherwise, they must find a
way in order to communicate effectively”.
• As far as autism is concerned, none of the
nine-year-old students have ever heard
this term and as a result they did not know
what it was.
Discussion
• Results reveal a gap in typical students’
knowledge
• They tend to associate disability with
technical devices
• They are unable to understand the
behavior of a child with autism
• None of them have stated the possibility of
having a classmate with disability
• These findings make us think more
seriously about the consequences of the
inclusion of a child with disability in a
mainstream classroom
• We highlight the importance of awareness
and the improvement of their acceptance
of their disabled schoolmates
For that reason,
• we are going to design an intervention
programme in order to improve not only
awareness but also attitudes.
• Before that, we are going to assess the
students’ awareness and investigate their
attitudes towards peers with disability.
• We strongly believe that such programmes
should be implemented in every school.
Typical students should understand that
disability is not the real reason for the
disabled students’ exclusion but it is
the society that perpetuates the bias
and negative attitudes towards them.