Children With Mild Learning Difficulties in an Integrated and in a Special School: Comparisons of Behaviour, Teasing and Teachers' Attitudes

Abstract

Comparisons were made between children and teachers in two schools, one a mainstream school with an integrated resource unit for children with mild learning difficulties, the other a special school. Seventeen children with mild learning difficulties from the special school and ten children with mild learning difficulties from the mainstream school, matched with ten mainstream children for age and sex, took part in the study. Observations were made on children in the playground and their social proximity and positive and negative behaviours were categorised. Self-reports on teasing, bullying and friendships were also collected from children in the mainstream school. Teachers from both schools completed a questionnaire on their attitudes to integration. There was no difference in amount of social contact children with mild learning difficulties had in the mainstream and special school nor were there significant differences in total positive and negative behaviours. Mainstream children, however, played significantly less frequently with children with mild learning difficulties and this was more marked in the older than the younger children. Self-reports from children in the integrated school indicated that the children with mild learning difficulties were teased/bullied more and made fewer friends than the mainstream children. Teachers in the mainstream were more positive and teachers in the special school were more negative towards integration. The special school teachers' expectations fitted more with the findings of the study than did those of the mainstream teachers.

Bullying in Students with and Without Special Educational Needs

“…This finding is in contradiction with other surveys which state that the rates of victimization of students with mental retardation are 2 to 3.5 times higher in special schools than in inclusive ones (Martlew & Hodson, 1991;Morrisson, Furlong, & Smith, 1994).…”

Bullying and Students with Disabilities: The Untold Narrative

“…However, students with specific learning disabilities (Martlew & Hodson, 1991;Nabuzoka, 2003;Nabuzoka & Smith, 1993;Sabornie, 1994;Whitney et al, 1994), Asperger syndrome (Little, 2002), ED (Monchy, Pijl, & Zandberg, 2004), and more significant intellectual disabilities may be subjected to increased involvement in bullying based on perceived differences in academic, functional, and/or social skills (McLaughlin et al, 2010;Rose, Monda-Amaya, & Espelage, 2011;Swearer et al, 2012). By definition, however, students who have been identified with a disability receive some level of special education or related services, which differentiates them from students without disabilities and may place them at greater risk for involvement in bullying.…”

Peer problems of 9‐ to 11‐year‐old children with hemiplegia in mainstream schools. Can these be predicted?

“…Almost 30 years of research in this field has shown that educational integration is simply not enough and that the social status and self-perceptions of integrated children have not improved greatly (Bear et al 1991, Clever et al 1992. Children with disabilities, whether these are physical differences or learning disabilities, educated wholly or partly in mainstream schools, are at greater risk of peer problems (O'Moore and Hillery 1989, Martlew and Hodson 1991, Nabuzoka and Smith 1993, Thompson et al 1994. This has been shown most extensively for children with learning disabilities, but it is also true for children with physical disabilities such as children with dyspraxia (Henderson andHall 1982, Henderson et al 1989) or children with short stature (Gilmour and Skuse 1996).…”