The relationship of disabled persons with their environment is fundamental. Attitudes towards them, understood as the social constructs of those around them, play a key role in a person’s development and future, as they are one of the fundamental elements that can facilitate or hinder the inclusion process. Our work examines the need to implement educational and awareness-raising actions and programs that contemplate intervention strategies based on education and direct contact with disabled persons. The main objective of the study was to analyze the effect of a Program for Changing Attitudes towards Persons with Disabilities on a group of secondary school students (11 to 15 years of age), assigning 770 to the experimental group and 105 to the control group. The evaluation instrument used was the “Brief Questionnaire of Attitudes towards Persons with Disabilities for Adolescents, CBAD-12A”. The results have demonstrated the efficacy of the intervention for the experimental group, as it was possible to attribute the changes in attitude to the effect of the Program. Specifically, an improvement in attitudes was found in all three factors of the questionnaire (Acceptance-Rejection, Competence and Opportunity) after the intervention.
Persons with a disability make up a social group which is in an especially vulnerable situation. They have to face obstacles and difficulties in their participation as part of the community with equal opportunities, in which attitude of others is a determining factor. This study makes a comparative analysis of three intervention programs (1 “Simulation and Modeling,” 2 “Information and Awareness Raising,” and 3 “Adapted Sport”) on attitudes toward persons with a disability of adolescents in secondary schools. Each program is based on a concrete technique, but they all have the common thread of the direct, structured contact technique with persons with a disability. The effectiveness of the three programs in changing attitudes is analyzed, and their impact on the different factors of the attitude construct (1 “acceptance/rejection,” 2 “competence/limitation,” and 3 “equality of opportunities”) is also studied. The results show the effectiveness of the three programs. The students show more positive attitudes toward persons with a disability in all the groups, especially program 1. Analyzing the general influence of the three programs on the factors of the attitude construct, it can be seen that in factors 2 and 3, the attitudes have significantly improved in all three programs. Finally, the results show that each program has been more effective on a concrete attitude factor.
The purpose of this article is to create and validate a brief instrument to evaluate attitudes towards persons with disabilities among the adolescent population between 12 and 16 years of age. Disability is currently understood from a contextual perspective (ecological model of disability), as the interaction of a person with her/his surroundings. As part of this interaction, the negative attitudes and expectations towards those with disabilities is still a reason for analysis, as it constitutes one of the main barriers to their inclusion in society. The evaluation of these attitudes in different age groups, using new analytical tools and instruments, is essential for the subsequent design and implementation of intervention measures in order to reverse the said attitudes and improve the collective’s place in society. In this study, there were 1282 participants, students between 12 and 16 years of age. A random selection was carried out, choosing fourteen educational centers in order to analyze the students’ attitudes towards persons with disabilities. The final result was the creation of the CBAD-12A questionnaire, made up of 12 Likert-type items, grouped into three factors: acceptance/rejection, competence/limitation, and equal opportunities. It has been demonstrated that the questionnaire possesses adequate psychometric characteristics, providing research with a new instrument to measure attitudes towards disability. The said questionnaire is useful as a diagnostic and/or predictive measure, allowing us to discover and generate interventions aimed at improving the attitudes of the adolescent population towards those with a disability.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.