A multidimensional study of special education students' attitudes towards people with disabilities: a focus on deafness

Abstract

This study explores the attitudes of future professionals working with students with disabilities towards four exceptionality groups: persons with deafness, with paralysis, with mental retardation (MR) and with delinquent behaviour, and speci cally examines how deafness is perceived in comparison with the three other groups. Undergraduate students' (N = 177) attitudes towards the four groups were tapped using a semantic differential scale referring to the cognitive, emotional and behavioural components of attitudes. Participants' degree of contact with people with disabilities was also reported. Results indicated that attitudes towards people with deafness were more positive than those towards the other three groups. Attitudes towards persons with paralysis were more positive than towards persons with MR and with delinquent behaviour, except when personality was considered. Emotional reactions and behavioural tendencies towards persons with delinquent behaviour were the most negative. Contact with people with disabilities had significant but low correlations with some aspects of the attitudes towards people with MR and paralysis. In general, the results of this study suggested that deafness was perceived as a physical disability and not as a social phenomenon. They also demonstrated that attitudes towards people with disabilities are a function of the particular disability condition and are multidimensional.A major concern in the rehabilitation of individuals with disabilities is other people's attitude towards them. A considerable amount of research has been done on various groups' attitudes towards people with disabilities, and by and large, it has shown that Eur.

The Hearing Aid Effect in Northern Territory Indigenous Australian Children as Perceived by Their Peers

“…They are predominantly shown towards people with hearing disabilities, physical disabilities, and intellectual disabilities (Cambra, 1996;Goldstein & Johnson, 1997;Yazbeck, McVilly, & Paramenter, 2004). Tur-Kaspa, Weisel, and Tova (2000) suggest that negative attitudes towards people with disabilities can be explained as people perceiving them as different from societal norms in the areas of appearance, health or athletic ability.…”

“…Negative attitudes towards people with disabilities can be explained as people perceiving them as different from societal norms in the areas of appearance, health or athletic ability (Tur-Kaspa et al, 2000). Children may have reported negative attitudes towards peers who wear hearing aids as their cognitive abilities and social attitudes for differences have not fully developed (Tur-Kaspa et al, 2000). Therefore, Indigenous Australian children's negative attitudes towards peers wearing hearing aids may reduce as their social cognition develops…”

“…As children have more negative attitudes towards people who differ from societal norms (Tur-Kaspa et al, 2000) this would indicate why they were rated more negatively than the other hearing aid conditions. This indicated that the BC hearing aid may be considered worse than the BTE hearing aid.…”

Social perception of the development of disabled children

“…This capability often leads to appropriate school programme placements for students with specific types of disabilities. Finally, Tur‐Kaspa and colleagues (2000), who conducted another multidimensional study with 177 special education prospective teachers, found that these undergraduates’ attitudes towards the disabled rest upon a positive to negative continuum in which the deaf is more favoured than the paralysed, while the paralysed is more favoured than the developmentally delayed, and the social delinquent is the least favoured. Thus, educators’ attitudes towards the disabled are most likely an optimistic and a pessimistic mixture.…”

Attitudes of Secular and Religious Israeli Adolescents Towards Persons with Disabilities: a multidimensional analysis

“…One approach considers the characteristics of the person with the disability as the main factor affecting these attitudes (e.g., Shurka-Zernitsky, 1988;Tur-Kaspa, Weisel, & Most, 2000), while another approach focuses on the characteristics of the persons who hold the attitudes. The present study followed the latter approach and therefore the differences in attitudes towards various types of disability conditions were not considered here.…”