Promoting acceptance of young children with special needs among preschoolers in Singapore

Abstract

This study investigated the effectiveness of an intervention program in promoting positive attitudes of kindergarten-age children towards peers with special needs. A factorial quasi-experimental study was designed with two experimental groups and a control group. Participants included 63 typically developing children who were attending mainstream preschools in Singapore. One of the experimental groups consisted of a class with a child with special needs enrolled (n = 26) while the other experimental group (n = 17) and the control group (n = 20) comprised classes with no children with special needs. The 5-week intervention involved 10 lessons about general and specific disabilities and uses naturalistic strategies, such as structured storytelling with related activities and guided discussions. The Acceptance Scale for Kindergarteners – Revised (ASK-R) was used to measure attitudes before and after the intervention. The outcomes of the ANCOVA analysis appeared to show positive, immediate effects on attitudes of kindergarten students of the experimental group, which comprised participants who had a classmate with special needs enrolled in their class. Hence, this preliminary study seemed to suggest the possibility that kindergarten students‟ attitudes can be improved by a short term knowledge-based intervention program among kindergarten students who has a classmate with special needs.