Journal of Advances in Education Research

Download PDF (307.5 KB) PP. 148 - 157 Pub. Date: August 1, 2018

DOI: 10.22606/jaer.2018.33003

• Laura M.D. Smucker
  Meeting St. Early Intervention, Providence, RI, United States
• John W. McCarthy^*
  Communication Sciences and Disorders, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States
• Joann P. Benigno
  Communication Sciences and Disorders, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States
• Jamie B. Boster
  Communication Sciences and Disorders, Ohio University, Athens, OH, United States

There is a lack of interventions to understand and change attitudes of school-age children toward peers with severe speech and physical disabilities. The effect of reading a first-person narrative on the attitudes of 66 fifth-grade children toward individuals who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) was investigated using a quasi-experimental design. Children were randomly assigned to either an experimental narrative condition (n = 37) or a control non-fiction, nondisability condition (n = 29). Children’s prior experience with individuals with disabilities and their biological sex had significant effects, with girls and those with previous experience having more positive attitudes than boys and those with no previous experience. Pre/post differences highlighted the potentially reactive nature of attitude testing. Reading the narrative did not lead to significant differences between groups in mean attitudes, but qualitative analyses revealed that the narrative led to a more comprehensive view of people with severe communication challenges and highlighting the misconceptions that many school-age children might have toward individuals with severe communication challenges.

Attitudes, augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), children, personal narrative.

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