Improving attitudes towards children with disabilities in a school context

This commentary begins with a disclosure. Some of the work cited by Godeau et al.1 and their acknowledgment of me clearly identifies my connection to the theme and to some of the background work on which the current study is based. However, I do not feel that this has biased my perception of the work on which I am commenting. In discussing the paper I wish to reflect on what is new – and what challenges remain – since we began to explore children’s attitudes toward disability 30 years ago. Major changes in the landscape of childhood disability include an awareness of the role of environment in people’s lives (as captured in the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health2) and the increasing integration of children into mainstream schools. As Godeau et al. point out, the socio-cultural dimension of environment includes attitudes toward disability. At the extremes these can be either very supportive of people’s engagement in the community, or toxic if they prevent inclusion. Hence, there is an important responsibility for people concerned with children with neurodisabilities to advocate for positive social environments that enable participation. Based on the number of communications our group has received in the past 3 years, it is my impression that interest in issues concerning attitudes is large and growing. What is discouraging are the challenges we face in trying to improve attitudes, at least as measured by the tools available to us. The study by Godeau et al. appears to have been well executed and was analytically sound, but the educational intervention had little apparent effect on measured attitudes. Among the possible explanations may be the age of the group targeted (12–13-year-olds are often rather self-centred) and the nature of the intervention (the details of which are presented briefly in an appendix). It may be necessary to structure experiential learning, such as non-competitive ‘buddying’ activities between able-bodied and disabled schoolmates. This would be done to create opportunities to increase familiarity with the capacities of people with disabilities, in an effort to decrease the stereotyping that too often characterizes what people think they know about minority groups. It is also likely that the educational components of interventions need to help learners not just to learn about the human rights aspects of treating all people with respect and dignity (though this is of course important), but also to include opportunities for them to learn about how they can be helpful (the things they can do with disabled schoolmates). It has been repeatedly observed that familiarity with disability is associated with better attitudes.3 This makes one wonder whether exposure to peers with functional differences in the preschool years might provide the best opportunities to help young children see and accept others as part of the social fabric of the community. If children have some (positive) awareness of people with disabilities when they go to school, they may already be more predisposed to engage with them than if they encounter people with disabilities for the first time when they are older and have learned the community’s stereotypes. The authors contrast their work with that of others, including the studies we did in the 1980s. They rightly observe that our studies involved randomized controlled trials of consenting children, whose attitudes might already have been more positive than the non-consenters. In contrast, their work might be considered to have real-world relevance as it involved all the children in the classes selected to be part of the study. That made their challenge much greater than the one we addressed. What would have been interesting – and what should be pursued in future attitudes research – is to explore whether, as we found, changes in children’s attitudes are mirrored by changes in parents’ attitudes.4 Were this to be found in other studies it would enhance the argument in favour of experiential learning about differences being an integral part of the fabric of school-aged children’s curriculum. Qualitative exploration of the nature and mechanisms of such child-to-parent transmission would also provide fascinating new insights into social learning. To conclude, there remain many opportunities for education and research about attitudes toward disability. Godeau et al. are to be congratulated for providing this stimulus to the rest of us!

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