Determinants of Children's Attitudes Toward Disability

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Determinants of Children's Attitudes Toward Disability: A Review of Evidence Peter L. Rosenbaum, Robert W. Armstrong & Susanne M. King Available online: 07 Jun 2010

To cite this article: Peter L. Rosenbaum, Robert W. Armstrong & Susanne M. King (1988): Determinants of Children's Attitudes Toward Disability: A Review of Evidence, Children's Health Care, 17:1, 32-39 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15326888chc1701_5

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CHC, SUMMER 1986, VOL. 17, NO

i

1

tr~butingto the choices of the able-bodied populat~ons were descnbed, and a number of themes emerged consistently from these investigations Nonetheless, the point of departure of these studies was the contribution played by the disabled child's features in determtning the reactions of the able-bodied These data were virtually all cross-sect~onal,and no apparent attempt had been made to mod~fy choice preferences experimentally Recognizing that the attitudes of the ablebodied majorlty play an important role in the acceptance of disabled peers, it is essential to ascertain the factors that contnbute to the development and maintenance of children's att~tudes Understanding the determinants of attitude may allow us to focus intervention programs In an effort to improve att~tudesThe purpose of thls paper is to review ev~denceconcernlng a number of factors found to contribute to able-bodied children's att~tudestoward d~sabledpeers The information to be presented is derlved from current l~terature on children's att~tudesbut draws particularly upon data gathered by the authors in studies over the past several years

METHODS As part of a senes of lnvestlgatlons of children's att~tudestoward "hand~capped" peers, we developed a measure, which has been shown to have good rel~abilltyand val~dity The Chedoke-McMaster Attitudes Toward Children w~th Hand~caps[CATCH] (Rosenbaum, Armstrong, & I n g , 1986a) IS a 36-~temquestlonnalre w~th 12 items In each of three domalns (affective, behavioral Intent, and cognltlve) thought to be lmportant In the formation of attitudes (Triandls, 1971) Items are equally divided into posit~vely and negatively worded statements, which are scored on a 5-point L~kertscale rangng from 0 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree) Negatively worded Items are recoded before sconng A h ~ g hscore represents a more posltive att~tude The questlonnalre 1s administered In classroom groups, IS targeted to children aged 9 to 14, and takes less than 20 minutes to complete The psychometnc properties of CATCH have been described (Rosenbaum et al , 1986a) Coefficient alpha is 90 Test-retest reliability is 74 CATCH IS able to detect differences among groups of chlldren accord~ngto gender, famll~ a r ~with t y a handicapped person, havlng a handicapped fnend, and volunteenng to participate in a buddy program In add~tion,CATCH IS able to detect change In att~tudesover time in chlldren who participate in buddy experiences with

disabled schoolmates (Armstrong, Rosenbaum, & brig, 1987, Rosenbaum, Armstrong, & Ktng, 1986b) The data to be presented have been collected in three stud~es~nvolv~ng more than 1200 children Twelve pnmary or junior public schools have been involved In these stud~esIn each case whole classes of children in grades 4 to 8 have been surveyed, with a mlnrmum of 50 chlldren per school answenng the questlonnalre Although some observations were made in the course of planning randomized clin~caltrials of Intervention strateges, the results reported here are predominantly nonexper~mentalpopulation data FINDINGS Gender

The single most potent and consistent determinant of att~tudesabout disability is gender Several authors have reported that grls express more positlve attitudes than boys gaffe, 1966, Rapier, Adelson, Carey, & Croke, 1972, Slperstein, Bak, & Gottlieb, 1977, Voeitz, 1980, 1982) Richardson (1970) presented a varlety of observations concerning gender dlfferences In children's values toward physical d~sability Despite the apparent uniformity among children of both sexes in their ordenng of the d~sabledstimu l ~(Richardson et al , 1961), the strength of the ratlngs varies w~thgender Thus grls consistently preferred the normal stlmulus, and least liked' the obese stimulus, more strongly than d ~ d age-matched boys from age 8 onward Girls tended to prefer stlmulus children with "funct~onal" rather than "cosmetic" d~sabilities, whereas the opposite was true for boys These patterns held across the age spectrum from grade 3 Into adulthood The age trends noted by Richardson (see below) tended to emerge earher and more strongly for grls that for boys R~chardson (1970) speculated that these d~fferences m~ghtbe a function of the relatlve Importance of physlcal appearance to grls He also wondered whether grls had a narrower range of role criteria concemlng physical differences by whlch thew ~ u d p e n t were s made Some stud~espresentevtdence contrary to the widespread observations that grls are more positive than boys in their attitudes toward the disabled The exceptions appear to reflect methodologcal differences In the pattern of assessment of attitudes Thus in Sipersteln and Gottlieb's (1977) study assessing children's attrtude toward mental retardation, the only stimulus child was a retarded boy This IS a curious ma-

Journal # 25073

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neuver, In view of the work done more than 20 years earl~erby R~chardson et a1 (1961) In whlch a particular effort 1s made to "hold constant the relat~onshipbetween the sex of the subject and that of the ch~ldIn the picture" (p 243) In the Slpersteln and Gottl~eb(1 977) study ~t a l~kelythat prls' responses to the retarded stimulus were confounded by t h e ~ rresponse to the chlld's gender, and one would be uncertan about accepting the authors' lnterpretatlon that these find~ngsshow boys to be more posltive that grls toward retarded schoolmates Our stud~eshave all showed a stat~stlcallySIRn~ficantdifference In att~tudesin favor of b r G In both the prellmlnary development of our measure (Armstrong & Rosenbaum, 1982) and subsequent lnvestlgatlons w~thour revised questlonna~re(Rosenbaum et a1 . 1986a). mrls have scored consistently up to 0 ~ ' S Dh~gherthan did boys T h ~ spattern has been true In virtually every school sampled of gender d~fferences Other man~festat~ons are reflected in the behav~oralanalysis of interactions between 40 paws of gender-matched able-bodled and d~sabledch~ldren(Armstrong, Rosenbaum, & Cunn~ngham,1983) Able-bodied grls Interacted m o r e p o s ~ t ~ vthan e l ~ did boys (mean = 55 0% versus 41 296, p = 01) and spent less time in independent play (mean = 26 7% versus 40 6%. p = 01) In a structured task format they provrded more hands on physlcal assistance to t h e ~ rdlsabled peers than d ~ d the boys (18 3% of tlme versus 6 6%. F = 12 9, p = 001) Further evldence of gender drfferences in behavior toward the disabled was found rn the relative rates of volunteenng for a speclal buddy program palnng gender-matched able-bodled and d~sabledschoolmates for nonacademic soc~alactlvitles at school In two studies In whlch ch~ldren'sconsent was sought, grls volunteered s~gnificantl more often than did boys (62% versus 47% X' = 5 67, p = 02) In one of these stud~es consenting grls scored s~gn~ficantly h~gher(0 62 SD) than d ~ refusers d whereas consentlng and refuslng boys had v~rtuallythe same scores T h ~ sruggests that the determ~nantof partlcrpatlon for grls 1s a funct~onof expressed att~tude,whereas for boys other factors are determlnlng whether they agree to become budd~es The repeated findlng of gender d~fferencesin attitude and the magnitude of these d~fferences 1s a matter of cons~derablelnterest The data are farrly conslstent across the age spectrum, ~ncludlng data on adolescents (Madak, 1982) and adults (Rosenbaum, Armstrong, & k n g , 1987), I '

0

and raise lmportant questions concerning the stages of moral development, particularly of preadolescent ch~ldren Gilligan (1982) has suggested that ch~ldrenof thrs age d~fferwlth respect to thew moral preoccupations She feels that boys are concerned w ~ t hnghts and justrce whereas @rls are more Interested In relat~onsh~psandcarlng These Ideas are congruent w~th the observat~onsof our stud~es,Insofar as grls express more Interest in programs concerning relatlonsh~psw~thd~sadvantagedpeers and express more posltlve attltudes overall toward disabll~ty The nature of Interactton of preadolescent ch~ldrenmay also part~allyaccount for the findlngs reported here Boys are l~kelyto be more "physical" than grrls and consequently are perhaps less Interested in developing a relatlonshlp with a peer whose d~sabllrt~es preclude active physical play Richardson's (1970) observation of the relatlve preference of cosmetlc to phys~cal d~sabll~ty among boys supports t h ~ shypothes~s Although the basis of these findings remalns speculat~ve,the lmplicat~onsfor the soclal experrence and development of dlsabled boys are extremely Important Because able-bodled boys express less favorable att~tudestoward d~sabled male schoolmates and volunteer slgnlficantly less often to participate in structured social interactlon wlth them, d~sabledboys are at relatively greater nsk of being depnved of an Important source of soc~aldevelopment If it can be demonstrated that ~ntervent~ons are effect~ve In modlfylng attltudes and lmprovlng behavioral sk~llsof the able-bodled toward the disabled, it will be extremely important to dev~sestrateges to engage boys as well as grls in these programs Effect of Age Ryan (1981) rev~eweda large number of Investigatlons of ch~ldren'sand adults' reactlons to the phys~cally dlsabled, specifically to assess whether conslstent patterns In the development of reactlons could be detected Tak~ngaccount of the enormous vanabil~tyIn the research revlewed, and the methodologxal llm~tat~ons of many of the stud~es,she concluded that reactlons do vary with age in a "double ~nverted-U form " Thus she feels that reactlons Increase In favorab~l~ty from early childhood to adolescence, decllne In late adolescence, and lncreare agaln In young adulthood Favorabllity increases somewhat dunng adult years and appears to decllne again after age 50 kchardson's (1970) study of children rangng from 5 years of age to late adolescence provided

Journal # 25073 3


CHC, SUMMER 1988, VOL 17, No 1

ev~denceof developmental trends In values toward the dlsabled Values Increased from kindergarten age through grades 3 to 5, dropped slightly In grade 6, and rose agatn In adolescence By the end of adolescence chlldren's preferences for varlous dlsabll~tles were very slmllar to those of the same sex parent W~thln the type of disabll~tyassessed, functional handlcaps became more ilked w ~ t hage whereas cosmetic handicaps dropped In value, espec~allyat puberty These observat~ons dlffer somewhat from those of Ryan (1981) R~chardson's(1970) data, however, were dented from the use of a single Instrument (preference ranklng of a standard set of drawings) appl~edsystemat~callyacross a wlde age spectrum and therefore had the advantage of homogene~tyof approach lacklng In Ryan's cross-sectional analysis of a vanety of data In our assessment of attltudes we were able to study chlldren aged 8 to 14 years There was no slgn;ficant effec; of age on attltudes, nor were there any consistent trends toward improvement or decrease In attltude w ~ t hlncreaslng age Because these findlngs are concerned wlth a reiatlvely narrow age spectrum, ~t IS perhaps not surprlslng that they do not conform to the pattern discerned by either Ryan (1981) or Richardson (1970) On the other hand, these chlldren were all assessed w~tha slngle Instrument, whlch Increases the likelihood that the results do reflect an absence of age effect, at least wlthrn thls latency age group Parents Parental attrtudes m~ghtbe expected to be crltrcally Important In the development of chrldren's attltudes toward mlnonty groups such as the dlsabled Rlchardson's (1970) study explored the relat~onshlpof parents' and children's attltudes uslng the plcture preference test He observed that at an early age chlldren's values were different from those of adults and shifted gradually dunng the adolescent years to resemble the values of the same sex parent by age 18, suggesting " that the early acqunltlon of values towards hand~caps1s not a dlrect learnlng through exposure to parental values" (Richardson, 1970, p 212) Apart from thls work, however, we are unaware of any data relatlng ch~ldren's attltudes to parental perceptlons of dlsablllty In the course of our studles we developed a measure to evaluate adult attltudes toward drsabled ch~ldren The Parent Attitudes ?oward Ch~ldren W ~ t hHand~caps(PATCH) question-

n a r e (Rosenbaum et al , 1987) IS modeled very closely on CATCH The 30 statements In PATCH are reworded from CATCH to be relevant to parents' experience and are scored stmllarly to the ch~ldmeasure The measure appears to have good psychometric properties Coefficient alpha IS 88 PATCH IS able to detect d~fferencesamong groups according to gender, famlllar~tyw~tha handtcapped person, st~mulusscenario (mentally retarded versus cerebral palsled chlld), and language of o n g n (Engllsh versus non-Engllsh) As well PATCH IS able to detect change in parental attltudes over tlme among both mothers and fathers of chlldren partlclpatlng m a soclal interaction (buddy) program at school (Armstrong et al , 1987) In one study of 164 fathers and them chlldren the correlat~onof CATCH score w~thPATCH was 24, whereas the correlat~onbetween 213 mothers and thew chrldren was 35 When the results were further analyzed by gender, several lnterestlng observat~ons were made Correlatlons of boys' scores w~thfathers' or mothers' scores were s~mllarat 32 On the other hand, correlatron of gris' scores wlth them fathers' scores was 16, whereas the correlat~on wrth mothers' scores measured 40 Here a p n ~tappears that determ~nantsof att~tudem 6oys drffer quant~tatwely, and perhaps qual~tat~vely, from factors lnfluenctng grls' attltude development These observat~onssuggest that, m the age range covered In this study, parental Influences on chlldren's attltudes toward dlsablllty are relatlvely modest Among other factors l~kelyto contr~buteto chlldren's attitudes at thrs developmental stage, the Influence of peers IS probably the most powerful In addltlon teachers, school pnnc~pals, and other slgnlficant adult figures probably play an important role, one whlch has not yet been explored In our

There has been relatlvel) llttle study of the effect of attltudes on chlldren's willingness to volunteer for partlclpatlon In specla1 programs of lnteractlon between able-bodled and disabled ch~ldren Voeltz (1982) found ev~dencesuggestlve of a volunteer effect She reported that of 161 fourth-grade children eligble for a "specla1 fnends" program of regular contact w~tha severely dlsabled peer, 78 volunteered to partlclpate There were slgn~ficantcorrelations between both pre- and posttest scores on the

Journal 3 25073

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CHC, SUMMER 1988, VOL. 17, NO

Acceptance Scale (Voeltz, 1980) and partlclpatlon In the program In our lnvestlgatlons chlldren were asked to consent to partlclpate In a "buddy" program palrlng able-bodled and disabled schoolmates for noncompetltlve soc~alactlvltles In two separate stud~es consenters scored slgnlficantly more pos~t~vely than refusers (0 37 SD In one study and 0 66 SD In the second) In vlew of the Importance of gender to consent rates descnbed above, ~t IS of Interest to note that, In a thlrd study In wh~chparental consent was sought without requlrlng them ch~ldren'sinvolvement In the dec~s~on, there was no statlstlcally s~gnlficantd L ference In volunteer rates between grls and boys, nor were ch~ldren'sexpressed att~tudes s~gn~ficantly d~fferentbetween consenting and refuslng fam111es

Contact and Fnendship With a Disabled Child Voeltz (1980) demonstrated that h~gherscores on her Acceptance Scale were expressed by ch~ldren lnvolved In a school where lnteractlon w~th severely d~sabledschoolmates was poss~bleand occurred regularly As she polnts out, "Contact w~thseverely hand~cappedchlldren was the varable that was clearly assoc~atedw~thaccepting responses on Factor 1 (Soc~alContact Wllhngness) regardless of sex or grade" (p 461) In a subsequent study Voeltz (1982) reported strongly posltlve correlat~onsbetween chlldren's att~tudesand amount of actual contact w~thretarded or dlsabled schoolmates Jaffe (1966) reported that hlgh school senlors who lnd~cated that they had had contact w~thretarded people ascnbed a greater number of favorable tralts to the retarded st~mulusIn h ~ sstud~esthan d ~ d people w~thoutcontact expenence We observed a relat~onsh~p between contact and att~tudeslmllar to that descnbed by Voeltz (1982) At each admlnlstrat~onof our CATCH questronnalre ch~ldrenwere asked whether they had had contact w~tha d~sabledperson In the prevlous week They were also asked whether they knew someone who was dlsabled and to Ind~catewhether thls was a fr~endor relatrve In one lnterventlon study In three schools, there l In att~tudescores bewas no l n ~ t ~ ad~fference tween the 75 ch~ldren(32%) who had contact wrth a d~sabledchlld In the week before answerIng the questlonnalre and the 159 ch~ldren (68%) not havlng contact After t h ~ s testlng buddy programs were created tn the three schools T h ~ sprogram lnvolved a total of 45 ch~ldren Three months later ~t was found that

1

50% of the 238 ch~ldrenhad had contact w~tha d~sabledschoolmate In the week before testlng, and thls group scored srgn~ficantlyhlgher (0 67 SD, p < 001) than d ~ d those havlng no contact Ch~ldren who clalmed to have a d~sabled fr~endscored h~gheron CATCH than d ~ dthose who d ~ dnot These obsercat~onswere made In three schools w~thsegregated d~sabledchlldren who had attended the school for several years At the outset the 114 ch~ldren(49%) answenng the questlon affirmat~velyscored sl~ghtlyh~gher (0 26 SD, p = 04) than d ~ dthose who d ~ dnot report havlng a dtsabled fr~end Three months later 155 chlldren (69%) claimed to have a d ~ s abled fr~end,and t h ~ sgroup scored s~gn~ficantly h~gher(0 63 SD, p < 001) than d ~ dthose who d ~ not d have a specla1 fnend These results were repl~cated In a subsequent study uslng seven schools, five of whlch had segregated classes for specla1 5tudents

Effect of Schools Reference was made to Voeltz's study (1980) reporting a correlat~onbetween expressed attl-

tude and schools In whlch lnteractlon w~thseverely dlsabled schoolmates occurred regularly By contrast, Gottl~ebet a1 (1974) found that att~tudeswere more favorable In schools w~thno exposure to chlldren requlrlng spec~al educat~on In one study we assessed chlldren's att~tudes In grades 4 through 7 In seven prlmary schools Two schools had classes for physically d~sabled chlldren and had had buddy programs In place for several years, two other schools had segregated classes for educably mentally retarded chrldren Ne~therschool had any specla1 soc~al lntegratlon programs runnlng at the outset of our lnvestlgatlons One school had just started a program w~thtwo classes of educably retarded l measurechlldren at the tlme l n ~ t ~ aatt~tude ments were made Two schools had no classes for chlldren w~thspec~alneeds The results of lnlt~alatt~tudemeasurements, lnvolvlng 387 chlldren, showed a cons~derablevanatlon In total CATCH scores As 1s ev~dentfrom Table 1, t h ~ s vanatlon bears no obv~ousrelat~onsh~p to the presence or absence of spec~alchildren or the presence of a buddy program Thus for example Schools 1 and 4 dlffer by 0 65 SD, whereas Schools 2 and 5 drffer by more than half a standard dev~atron The h~ghestand lowest scorlng schools w~thsegregated classes of mentally d ~ s abled ch~ldrend~fferby almost 0 6 SD, and the overall dlfference among the seven schools IS almost 0 9 SD

Journal # 25073 5

CHC, SUMMER 1988, VOL 17, NO 1

37

TABLE 1 VARIATION IN MEAN ATTITUDE SCORE BY SCHOOL Sprcral features --


Segrep'ed classes khxd

h

PD

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

53 49 62 57 52 63 51

X

EMR

buddy system

CATCH

X

29 1 28 3 27 7 26 1 25 8 25 6 25 0

X (x)

X

-

Mean

X

X

-

Prcvx,"s

wore

Note Overall mean CATCH Y SD = 27 8 f 4 6, F (6,333) = 6 1I p = 001 PD phystcally drsobled, EMR educable menlally relarded

In another study chlldren's famlllarlty w~th dtsabled schoolmates vaned greatly, apparently as a reflect~onof the structural charactenstlcs of the three schools lnvolved School A had satell~te

classes In a Cerebral Palsy Centre approx~mately 200 yards from the maln bulldmg The dsabled chlldren were In the school two or three tunes a week for l~braryor gym programs but were not consistently v~srble under the same roof In School B the segregated classes were adjacent to regular classes and disabled chlldren were constantly v~s~ble In the comdors of the school School C was an H-shaped bullhng, at one end of whlch were segregated classes for the physlcally handicapped Thus whlle the hsabled were under the same roof all week, them v ~ s ~ b ~to l~ty able-bodled schoolmates could be expected to be lntermedlate between that of School A and School B Results of chlldren's famll~antywlth d~sabledschoolmates before and three months after buddy programs were run In these schools are shown In F~gure1 In each case there were hlghly slgnlficant differences In the proporuons of d~sabledchlldren known (P < 001). In a pattern pred~ctedby the geographical layouts of the schools and hence the opportunltles for exposure to the d~sabledchlldren It would appear that the physlcal organlzatlon of schools may contnbute to exposure to dlsabled chlldren and

TDE 0: MlWYWllM Fzpre 1 Mean peruntage of dasabkd chrldrzn knmun by able-bodtcd schoolmoles Pre-buddy $ = 29 6, P buddy $ = 2 7 7 , p < 001

Journal # 25073 6