Amatzia Weisel

School climate, sense of efficacy and Israeli teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion of students with special needs

This article examines the effects of school organizational and educational climate, and a teacher’s sense of efficacy, on general education teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion of students with special needs. The sample included 139 teachers from 17 elementary schools in the Northern District of Israel. The results of Pearson correlation and multiple regression analyses indicated that school climate and teachers’ sense of efficacy as well as participation in special education training were positively associated with teachers’ attitudes toward inclusion. Self-efficacy was the single most important factor affecting attitudes. School climate included six factors: supportive leadership; teachers’ autonomy; prestige of the teaching profession; renovations; teachers’ collaboration; and workload. Examination of the intercorrelations among these factors and with attitudes revealed that those teachers who perceived their school as having supportive leadership, encouraged renovations and collaboration but did not threaten teachers’ autonomy, tended to express more positive attitudes towards inclusion.

Original articles: attitudes toward own communication and toward stutterers

Abstract One theory explains the consistent negative stereotype toward stutterers by suggesting that it is formed by a process of inference. Fluent speakers use their own experiences of normal dysfluency to infer the personality of persons who are often dysfluent: stutterers. This was examined in the present study by analyzing the relationships between 164 adolescents’ attitudes towards their own communication, measured by the Erickson Scale, and their attitudes towards stuttering adolescents. Attitudes toward stutterers were measured by a semantic differential questionnaire with 25 bipolar adjective scales divided into the Tenseness and Pleasantness Scales. The effect of stutterers’ sex and participants’ sex was examined as well. The results showed a weak positive correlation between boys’ attitudes toward their own communication and their attitudes toward male stutterers on the Tenseness Scale only. These results only partially supported the Inference Theory. In addition, the sex of the persons who stutter had no effect on the attitudes expressed toward them, showing that female stutterers did not have a double minority status. On the other hand, female participants showed significantly more positive attitudes toward stutterers on the Pleasantness Scale of the semantic differential questionnaire. Finally, a positive correlation was found between attitudes toward own communication and social self-image, emphasizing the importance of communication skills for social adjustment.

Role Taking Ability, Nonverbal Sensitivity, Language and Social Adjustment of Deaf Adolecents

Abstract The relationships between social‐cognitive processes, language, and social‐behavioural skills were evaluated by analyzing the data of 68 deaf students, aged 14 to 2o years, who attended special education classes with vocational orientation. The social‐cognitive processes included Role Taking Ability (RTA) and Non‐Verbal Sensitivity (NVS). Language was evaluated by the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT) and by a test of Emotional Vocabulary (EV). Social‐behavioural skills were assessed by Goldstein, Sparfkin, Greshaw and Kleins (1980) Social Skills Checklist. The social‐behavioural skills were used as indicators of social adjustment. The results revealed low performance in all the social‐cognitive abilities. Language played a major role in social adjustment. However, the availability of specific emotional vocabulary was not a better predictor of social adjustment than general language ability. Although RTA was associated with social adjustment, this association was related to language ability...

Auditory, visual and auditory—visual identification of emotions by hearing and hearing-impaired adolescents

This study investigated the identification of non-verbal expressions of emotions by 19 hearing and 24 hearing-impaired adolescents. The participants were presented with video recordings of six emotions: anger, fear, sadness, surprise, happiness and disgust. The emotions were expressed on the same neutral sentence. The expressions were presented in three modes: visual, auditory and combined auditory-visual. The relative contributions of each mode to the identification processes were evaluated for the two research samples. The accuracy in identification of emotions through each of the presentation modes among the hearing-impaired participants was significantly lower than that of the hearing participants. The hearing participants performed better in the auditory-visual mode than in the auditory or the visual modes alone. The hearing-impaired participants performed better in the visual mode than in the auditory mode, and no difference was found between the auditory-visual mode and the visual mode alone. The lower performance of the hearing-impaired group suggested that rehabilitation processes should include training in the area of non-verbal perception. The rank order of the identification of emotions in both research samples was similar. Fear and surprise were the most difficult to identify. Similar order was found for each of the presentation modes as well. Further examination of the stimulus material with different groups of hearing-impaired individuals was recommended.

Contact with Mainstreamed Disabled Children and Attitudes Towards Disability: a multidimensional analysis

Abstract Attitudes towards disabilities of 156 hearing students who experienced different levels of contacts with mainstreamed hearing impaired students were evaluated by a multi‐dimensional questionnaire, the Disability Factor Scale—General. Forty‐four subjects were studying in the same classes with hearing impaired students (high level of contact), 57 students were studying in the same school but not in the same classes with the hearing impaired students (moderate level of contact) and 55 subjects did not have any contact with hearing impaired children. Subjects who had a moderate level of contact expressed more negative attitudes than subjects of the two other groups on a scale which measured the tendency to advocate segregation of disabled people and to hold a derogatory approach towards them. Subjects of the group with a moderate level of contact tended to attribute more functional limitations to disabled persons than subjects who had a high level of contact. No differences were found between attitud...

Computer‐assisted Social Skills Learning for Adolescents with Mild Retardation and Social Difficulties

Abstract The aim of this study was to evaluate an intervention model for computer‐assisted social skills learning. The integration of technology enables experimentations within a controlled, structured, and easily changeable mini‐environment, emphasising four critical aspects of social learning: active learning, controlled and fluent processing, structure and schema organization and strategy training. Twelve adolescents with mild retardation and social difficulties were trained on “I Have a Problem” social conflict scenarios, integrating the software with strategy training. The results demonstrated that the children increased their understanding of the social conflict situations as expressed on the software measures and on paper and pencil questionnaires. Three case studies were provided to demonstrate the students’ individual learning styles, assessed through students’ reports and teachers’ ratings.

Deafness and Perception of Nonverbal Expression of Emotion

Compensatory sensitivity is said to follow loss of a primary communicative channel. In previous studies in which how accurately deaf and hearing people perceive emotional expression was compared, caricatures or nonverbal behavior of hearing people were stimuli. These studies did not specifically address the possibility that deaf people show nonverbal behavior which might be related to their sign language. To assess this possibility two methodological innovations were made. Stimuli were displayed of nonverbal messages with various emotional contents presented by deaf people in sign language. Also, no verbal labels identified emotional content of the messages. Sixty hearing and 45 deaf male college students watched films of emotional expressions in sign language. The participants tried to identify the emotional content of each film by matching content to one of six photographs of facial expressions. Responses were analyzed for accuracy in perceiving the emotional content. Hearing participants were more accurate in perceiving the display of Happiness. Display of Disgust was perceived better by the deaf participants. No support was found for compensatory sensitivity among the deaf participants.

The Facilitation of Information Processing in Learning Disabled Children Using Computer Games

Abstract The aim of the study was to improve the information processing and concentration skills of learning disabled (LD) children by using computer games in a procedure that enhances self‐verbalisation and mediated learning. Of the 21 LD children who participated in the study, 14 were trained in the specific procedure, while at the same time the seven children in the control group participated in regular tutorial activities in small groups. Subsequently, in the second training period, the control group was instructed to play commercial strategic games, with no stress on self‐verbalisation procedures and the experimental group participated in regular classroom tutorial activities, without computers. The following measures were used to assess the effect of the training: MFFT, Progressive Matrices and three subtests of the WISC‐R. The results demonstrated that the computer games presented within the framework of self‐verbalisation procedures and peer‐interaction facilitate the information processing of LD ...

Attitudes of Secular and Religious Israeli Adolescents towards Persons with Disabilities: A Multidimensional Analysis.

Differences between religious and secular people in their attitudes towards persons with disabilities may originate in social-cultural factors, such as values and norms, as well as in personality factors like dogmatism. Since religious and secular people differ in these characteristics, it was expected that they would differ in their attitudes as well. Attitudes towards persons with disabilities reflect complex interpersonal and intrapersonal processes and therefore should be assessed with multidimensional measures. In the present study the attitudes of 83 religious and 51 secular Israeli adolescents were measured with Sillers Disability Factor Scale–General (DFS-G). The questionnaire included seven factors that reflect psychodynamic processes operating to protect the individual against the threat and anxiety associated with the presence of a person with a disability or even by the mere consideration of his/her condition. Level of dogmatism was measured as well. No differences in dogmatism were found between the two groups. Secular participants expressed more positive attitudes than religious participants on two attitude scales—Generalized Rejection and Authoritarian Virtuousness. These two scales express special, segregative, and unequal attitudes. The findings give some support to the claim that religious affiliation, even if it encourages care for persons with disabilities, is associated with segregation and attribution of unequal social status to these people.

Hearing Thresholds as Predictors of Speech Production Performance

A study was made of the relationship between pure-tone thresholds (500, 1000, and 2000 Hz) and teacher-rated speech production performance (SPP) of 214 students with hearing losses of 56 dB or greater in three different types of educational setting in Israel. Correlation coefficients of speech production performance (SPP) with the thresholds at 2000 Hz were found to be higher than with the other threshold measures, 500 and 1000 Hz, and vs. the better ear average. Similar results were found within each of the three educational settings and when multiple regression analyses were performed. It was concluded that hearing threshold at 2000 Hz was the best predictor of SPP. These results are discussed in the light of previous studies and suggestions for further research are made.