ATTITUDES OF ADULTS AND CHILDREN TOWARD CHILDREN WITH MILD ARTICULATION DISORDERS

This study examined the effect of mild articulation disorders exhibited by fifth graders on the attitudes of peers and teachers-in-training. A videotape of fifth grade boys and girls who exhibited either no errors, /r/ errors, or /s/ and /z/ errors was shown to (1) 348 fourth and sixth grade peers and (2) 51 teachers-in-training. With both groups of subjects, attitudes were measured through the use of semantic differential instruments which had been field and pilot tested to establish validity and reliability. The concepts used with the peers included: "What do you think of this child as a TALKER," "What do you think of this child as another 4th (6th) GRADER," and "What do you think this child will be like as a TEENAGER." The first and last concepts were also used with the teachers-in-training; however, the concept "WHAT do you think about this child's POPULARITY WITH CLASSMATES" replaced the 4th (6th) GRADER concept. Independent variables included articulatory status and gender, as well as grade level for the peers. The variables controlled included: race, intelligence, hearing, reading ability, physical appearance, attire, personality, vocal quality, dialect, age, and enrollment of the peer judges in public school speech therapy. The dependent variables were the mean scores on each of the semantic differentials.;The results of this study indicate that schools have an obligation to broadly interpret the "adversely affects education" phrase of PL 94-142 and consider the emotional/social consequences associated with mild articulation disorders. Implications with respect to developmental norms, teacher training programs, and future research are discussed.;It was found that: (1) on all three concepts all subjects held significantly more negative attitudes toward fifth graders who exhibited articulation errors than they did toward fifth graders who exhibited no errors, (2) for both groups of subjects there was a significant interaction between articulation and gender making it difficult to generalize about whether attitudes were more negative toward children with /r/ errors versus /s/ and /z/ errors or toward girls versus boys, and (3) sixth graders were significantly more negative in their attitudes than were fourth graders.