Publication: Assessment of peers' level of acceptance of students with autism spectrum disorders in Singapore
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Date
2015
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Abstract
The current study aimed to explore peers’ acceptance of children with ASD within Singapore. The study assessed if the presence of social contact with children with ASD had an effect on peers’ a) level of knowledge about ASD, b) attitude ratings towards children with ASD, and c) behavioral intention ratings towards children with ASD. We also evaluated the reliability of our Autism Awareness Questionnaire (AAQ) in assessing knowledge of ASD across typically developing peers. Typically developing peers from two mainstream secondary schools participated in the study. The participants included 95 peers from school A who had social contact with children with ASD, and 100 peers from school B who did not had social contact. Data was collected via administration of questionnaire for both groups. Each participant was measured on their a) level of knowledge using the AAQ, b) attitudes using the Chedoke Attitudes Towards Individual with Handicap (CATCH) rating scale, and c) behavior intentions using the Shared Activities Questionnaire (SAQ). Almost half of the participants completed the AAQ twice for the purpose of test-retest reliability. The results indicated that peers with social contact with children with ASD did not indicate an increase in knowledge of ASD, and they also rated lower on attitudes and behavioral intentions towards children with ASD. This suggests that, while Singapore is embracing inclusive educational approaches, mere physical inclusion of children with ASD did not promote peers’ acceptance. The reliability of the AAQ was established to be in the low range. However, we are encouraged by the findings as the overall psychometric property of the AAQ was an improvement when compared to the knowledge scale used in earlier research (i.e., Campbell & Barger, 2010). With further revisions and improvements to the AAQ, it is our hope that the scale can be used in Singapore schools to measure peers’ level of knowledge of ASD.