A review of educators' attitudes toward handicapped children and the concept of mainstreaming

Literature is reviewed related to the attitudes of educators toward handicapped children and the concept of mainstreaming these youngsters into regular class settings. Opinionnaire data suggest that regular class educators, particularly those with little formal training or experience in special education, do not favor mainstreaming. Moreover, these educators view handicapped children as generally less able to benefit from schooling. Research is also reviewed that documents the relationship between teachers' attitudes toward individual pupils and the differential instructional treatment of children. Finally, efforts to modify the attitudes and perceptions of educators toward handicapped children and mainstreaming are presented.     

An analysis of factors related to the attitudes of regular classroom teachers toward mainstreaming mildly handicapped children

A model of factors was developed in order to examine variables that might be associated with the attitudes of regular classroom teachers toward mainstreaming mildly handicapped children. Using multiple linear regression analyses, the following variables were found to be significant predictors of a positive attitude toward mainstreaming: team-teaching, years of teaching experience (negative correlation), course in diagnosing learning and behavior problems, availability of resource teacher, previous special education teaching experience, number of courses taken in special education, number of students in classroom (25–27), and inservice program experience related to exceptional children. An examination of these predictors suggests that they may be used to select those regular educators who are likely candidates for implementing mainstreaming programs and that school systems can inhance their mainstreaming efforts by arranging the integration settings to conform with these predictors of positive attitude.     

Referral and placement recommendations of teachers toward gifted handicapped children

Three male students between 10 and 13 years of age, who possessed WISC‐R Full Scale IQ's of greater than 120 and documented problems in decoding skills were assessed with respect to cognitive processing abilities (Cognitive Assessment System) and found to have marked deficits in successive coding. A process based remedial program, combining global training on tasks requiring successive processing with tasks involving the application of successive processing to decoding in reading, was implemented within approximately six weeks (15 hours) of training. The remedial program included guided practice and verbal mediation to assist students to internalize and generalize the cognitive strategies. Improvements following remediation were manifested uniquely for each of the students. The differences appeared to be related to the entry skill levels and preferred strategies of each student, as well as to the dimensions of attention and motivation. Results offer an extension of cognitive theory regarding the functioning of students, and may also provide an assessment option allowing earlier identification and remediation for such students.     

Influences on attitudes toward physical affection between adults and children

Recent publicity about sexual abuse may be creating unwarranted negative attitudes toward normal physical affection. In this study, 301 subjects (parents, nonparents, and early childhood professionals) rated approval of videotaped adult-child interactions. Before viewing the tape, half of the subjects read a statement about sexual abuse and the other half read about the benefits of touch. Within each group, half of the subjects were told that the videotaped adults were parents and the others thought that they were day care providers. Analysis of approval scores for touch and no-touch scenes showed that (a) when subjects are attuned to sexual abuse, they are more disapproving of affectionate touching and more approving of nonphysical interactions; (b) affection is more highly approved when it comes from a parent than from a day care provider; (c) men approve less of adultchild physical affection than women do; and (d) early childhood professionals are more approving of physical affection.     

Interpersonal and relational orientation among pre-service educators: differential effects on attitudes toward inclusion of students with disabilities

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the extent to which pre-service educators’ interpersonal characteristics affected their attitudes toward teaching students with disabilities (inclusion), as measured by the FIRO-B and ATIES pre- and post-course. The FIRO-B was administered to assess expressed and wanted aspects of three interpersonal needs: personal inclusion, affection and control. The ATIES was administered to measure attitudes toward classroom inclusion of students with physical, academic, behavioral and social disabilities. Repeated measures ANOVAs revealed a main effect for wanted inclusion and an interaction effect for expressed inclusion and expressed affection on attitudes toward classroom inclusion. Ultimately, these findings reveal how unique relational characteristics may influence preparation initiatives and may encourage consideration of how individual factors may mediate teacher training and preparation.     

The semantic differential technique in the examination of teacher attitudes to handicapped children

The study investigated the relationship between the attitudes of educators to exceptional children and the amount of contact with such children, knowledge about them, and the demographic variables: sex; age; and teaching experience of the respondents. A Semantic Differential technique was used and ten scales were rated over four concepts: physically handicapped children; emotionally disturbed children; mentally retarded children; speech impaired children. Attitude, represented by factor scores on a ‘social acceptability’ dimension, was correlated with the independent variables and produced low (r<.30) and inconsistent coefficients. An analysis of variance of the means of the ten scales over the four concepts indicated a more negative evaluation of the concept representing emotionally disturbed children than of the other three concepts. The evaluations were made in response to disability labels, and the results point to the need for further empirical research into the effects of labelling children on the attitudes of educators.     

Implicit attitudes toward children may be unrelated to child abuse risk

Objective

To explore whether adults possess implicit attitudes toward children and whether those attitudes are especially negative among respondents who are high in child physical abuse (CPA) risk.

Methods

The present study used an implicit evaluative priming procedure. In this procedure, participants were instructed to make decisions about the evaluative implications of target words. These words were preceded by photographs of child faces or adult faces displaying positive, neutral, or negative expressions. Reaction times for the evaluative decisions were used as an index of the extent to which photos invoked negative or positive evaluative reactions.

Results

Results from 2 studies, the first conducted on a student sample (N = 90) and the second on a parent sample (N = 95), demonstrated that evaluative congruence between the facial expressions displayed in photographs and the target words facilitated responses. Furthermore, the results suggested that regardless of CPA risk, child faces, relative to adult faces, facilitated responses to negative target words, suggesting an out-group bias. This implicit out-group bias was not moderated by respondents’ CPA risk status.

Conclusions

Faces of children, relative to faces of adults, appear to activate negative information structures that facilitate evaluative decisions of negative stimuli, suggesting an out-group bias. Given that out-group biases typically lead to less favorable treatment of out-group members, additional research is needed to examine the pervasiveness of negative evaluative biases towards children and the potential implications of such biases on children's lives. Further, research examining whether high CPA risk parents and low CPA risk parents differ in how they manage initial negative evaluative reactions is needed.     

Effects of knowledge and persuasion on high-school students' attitudes toward nuclear power plants

Researchers report finding correlational data to identify a positive relationship between nuclear knowledge and positive attitudes toward the use of nuclear energy. This study investigated the relationship between nuclear knowledge and nuclear attitudes and to the understanding of Science-Technology-Society attitudes involving technological attitude objects. This quasi-experimental study tested the causal relationship between knowledge about nuclear power plants and attitudes toward their use in electrical generation. Subjects were presented with systematically designed communications developed to change either their knowledge about or attitude toward nuclear plants. The Standard Events of Instruction was the basis of the knowledge instruction, whereas the Learning Theory Approach and the Theory of Reasoned Action were the theoretical bases of the persuasive communication. The principal finding was that nuclear knowledge and nuclear attitude each can be changed independently of the other. Although knowledge and attitudes are correlationally linked, this study shows no evidence of a cause-effect relationship.