CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - Kindergartners who listen to stories about their similarities with children who have disabilities and engage in activities with peers who have special needs are more socially accepting, develop better communication skills and are less likely to engage in bullying behaviors, according to a new study by two special education professors.
The study by Michaelene Ostrosky, of the University of Illinois, and Patricia C. Favazza, of Rhode Island College, involved kindergartners in classrooms in Illinois, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Three days a week for six weeks teachers read their students stories about children with disabilities as part of the Special Friends curriculum. The readings were followed by teacher-led guided discussions about the concepts presented in the stories. Each week, the children also selected one of the books that had been been read to them and its related discussion questions to take home to read and discuss with family members.
The 18 stories and discussions focused on the similarities shared by all children - regardless of ability, such as a taste for ice cream and the joy they find in playing with their pets, Ostrosky said.
The children also engaged in 15-minute hands-on activities in cooperative learning groups that comprised at least one student with special needs and four typically developing peers. The groups were consistent for the six weeks of the intervention.
Children in a contact control group participated in similar activities; however, their intervention supported science language and literacy rather than focusing on diverse abilities and inclusiveness. Sixteen classrooms participated in the science intervention and 16 classrooms participated in the Special Friends intervention.
At the beginning and the end of the program, children were asked about their relationships with peers who had special needs, and their attitudes toward their peers with disabilities were assessed using the 18-item Acceptance Scale for Kindergarten created by Favazza and Samuel Odom, the director of the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute and a professor in the School of Education at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The teachers and the researchers also assessed each child's social skills and problem behaviors and observed children's interactions while playing in the cooperative learning groups.
Preliminary findings indicate that by the end of the six-week program, children with disabilities in the Special Friends classrooms showed significant improvements in cooperativeness, responsibility and social control and significant decreases in their levels of hyperactivity/inattention, according to teachers' assessments.
Along with significant improvements in the skills above, typically developing children also exhibited greater assertiveness and empathy and were less likely to exhibit bullying behaviors toward their classmates.
Teachers did not perceive the children with disabilities in the science intervention as having undergone any of the positive changes observed in the Special Friends classrooms. Children in the science intervention also engaged in significantly more hyperactive/inattentive behaviors.
The researchers also noted that all low-income children, regardless of which intervention they engaged in, began the study with scores indicating they were more accepting of people with disabilities than their more affluent classmates.
The researchers aren't sure why that was the case, Ostrosky said.
"Were they more accepting as a group because of experiences they had or because of family characteristics? That's intriguing for us, too, but we don't have enough information yet to explain these preliminary findings," Ostrosky said. "We are in the process of analyzing this year's data and hope to better understand these patterns."
As early as age 5, children become aware of differences in abilities and begin forming perceptions about people with disabilities. Among the factors that influence children's attitudes are indirect experiences such as exposure to photographs that include people with disabilities in classroom settings; interactions with individuals with disabilities through inclusive, cooperative play groups and family members' attitudes toward individuals with diverse abilities. Research has indicated that children are more likely to develop positive attitudes toward people with disabilities and be more accepting of them when these three factors convey positive thoughts, feelings and attitudes.
Because many of our nation's teachers are not trained in special education, they often are uncomfortable leading class discussions and answering students' questions about topics such as autism, Down syndrome and physical disabilities, Ostrosky said.
But teachers who participated in the Special Friends intervention said because they "had the books and the discussion guides, (they) felt more comfortable talking about these things and answering the children's questions, such as why a person uses a wheelchair or a hearing aid or why a child is bothered by loud noises and bright lights."
During the study, one of the groups of kindergartners from a school in Champaign went on a field trip to a retirement/assisted living community, and the director reported that the children were excited when they saw residents using assistive devices such as walkers, wheelchairs and hearing aids that they had learned about during the Special Friends readings.
"They have the vocabulary to talk about those things, and then it isn't frightening," Ostrosky said. "It just is what it is."
The study is expected to include a total of 313 children in 32 classrooms by the time it concludes later this year.
Ostrosky, Favazza and their research team recently presented the study's preliminary findings at several national conferences, including the National Association of School Psychologists Annual Convention in San Francisco, the American Educational Research Association in New Orleans and the Council for Exceptional Children's annual conference in National Harbor, Md.