Disability in a family as a factor for developing attitude towards deaf and hard of hearing students in inclusive education

Abstract

Inclusion is the process of wider involvement of children with disability into mainstream education system and further on into various social aspects. Inclusion promoters claim that the acceptance of children with disability by their peers in mainstream schools is a corner stone of inclusion. Promoters believe that positive attitude of typically developing students is a crucial factor of successful implementation of inclusion process. Hearing impairment is the most frequent congenital sensory handicap. Hearing impairment affects speech and cognitive development and therefor presents significant health and social burden in the considerable part ofpopulation. The goal of this study was to assess if the presence of a disabled person in a family could affect the attitude of older students (6th, 7th and 8th grade) towards deaf and hard of hearing students in mainstream school. The instrument in this study was the adapted questionnaire Attitudes toward Deafness afour-point 25-item rating scale (Cowen etal., 1967). The study was conducted in five mainstream primary schools. The sample contained 255 typically developing students of both genders, attending 6th, Th or 8a grade. They came for various social strata. The results have shown that the students have mostly positive attitude regarding deaf and hard of hearing schoolmates. Students coming from families with disabled person usually have developed more sympathetic attitude.