The study sought to explore feelings of worry and sources of stress-affected parents of children with disabilities, as well as describing the negative feelings and how resources helped them overcome stress due to the outbreak of the Coronavirus. Furthermore, we sought to assess the level of general satisfaction with the services they have obtained remotely. Methodology: A sample of 623 parents of children with disabilities filled out an electronic self-report questionnaire during the period June 4th to June 20th, 2020. Results: The parents reported a high level of worry regarding the possibility of their child getting infected. Parents continue to worry about losing their child’s care and treatment. Parents who hold a bachelor’s degree feel the sources of stress at a higher level compared to parents with lower than high school education. A proportion of 59% of parents reported not receiving services from special education centers during the pandemic, and 41% of parents were satisfied with the services provided by the center of special education. Parents with a bachelor’s degree or higher were less satisfied with the center’s services. Parents with a higher qualification than secondary school use several sources to overcome the pressure associated with educating a child with a disability. Conclusion: Mental health fears were associated with pandemic restrictions. The study recommends special education centers implement strategies that support parents with special education children.
The objectives of the study were to investigate regular education teachers’ attitudes towards inclusion and their educational setting preferences for teaching students with disabilities. In addition, the impact of teachers’ gender and teaching experience on the attitudes towards inclusion were examined. Seven hundred three Omani regular education teachers participated in this study. The findings suggest that the Omani regular education teachers held neutral behavior, cognitive, and affective attitudes towards inclusion; and a small minority of teachers believed that full inclusion in regular education classrooms or resource rooms were the best educational settings for educating the students with disabilities in comparison with other educational settings. Finally, the results indicated that there were significant relationships between teachers’ gender, teaching experience, and educational settings preference for educating students with disabilities and teachers' attitudes towards inclusion.
The purpose of this study was to investigate the problems related to inclusion with special needs for Omani students in higher education. The subjects were consisted of 28 students 16 male and 12 female. Eleven students were visually handicapped and 17 students were physically handicapped. A questionnaire consisted of 59 items was used. Results indicated that there were statistically significant differences in the barriers to inclusion due to the type of disability and scored by the visually handicapped. On the other hand, there were no statistically significant differences in the obstacles of the inclusion due to the gender or the degree of the disability, but there was a statistically significant difference for the interaction of the two variables, the degree of disability and the gender.
The purpose of the current study was to survey the stakeholders’ opinions of the best educational placement setting for students with disabilities in the Sultanate of Oman. Two thou- sand four hundred and thirty stakeholders participated in this study. The findings provided ev- idence that the majority of the Omani stakeholders prefer educating students with disabilities in regular schools over separate facilities. In addition, the stakeholders’ preference on the continu-um of placement options varied significantly. The results also suggested that the stakeholders’ preference for educating students in the regular school setting versus a separate facility varied according to the type of disability. Moreover, a significant association between the stakeholders’ role and their preference of educational placement setting for students with disabilities was found. However, the findings revealed that there was no significant relationship between the stakeholders’ gender and their educational settings preference. Finally, educational services for children with disabilities in Oman were discussed and suggestions were provided to improve these services.
Visual arts are activities that contribute to educating learners with and without special needs. These activities provide an opportunity for learners with special needs (LSN) to freely express their feelings, conflicts, psychological problems, and their artistic creativity. Visual arts are considered as a source of satisfaction, development of the feeling of achievement, and happiness, and a means of activating thinking and learning. In the professional context, art therapy is one of the therapeutic interventions in special education programs. The aim of this research was to explore effects of a Special Art Education (SAE) Course on attitudes toward Omani LSN. Participants of 19 undergraduate students of Art Education Department (AED), Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) were involved in this research. Participants responded to the scale of attitudes towards the LSN before and after studying the SAE course. The scale consisted of 30 items distributed into three domains related to course instructor, course topics, and course teaching methods. The results indicated that these domains contributed to improving participants' attitudes. This improvement was demonstrated by the size effects of the SAE course on participants' attitudes toward Omani LSN.
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