Changing the Attitudes of Non-Handicapped Children to the Mainstreaming of Hearing Impaired Children

Abstract

It is interesting to speculate on the concept of decision-making and change in education. A particularly appropriate trend in education which is worthy of careful scrutiny is the concept of ‘mainstreaming’ – a topic of current concern to educators and one which will be mentioned many times, no doubt, during this Conference. Of special concern in this paper is the question of the mainstreaming of hearing impaired children and the attitudes of the non-handicapped peers to the inclusion of deaf children in their class. As a brief preamble to the particular study under question, let us consider the multi-faceted nature of mainstreaming, together with some of the decisions which have to be made about this trend. Reynolds (1976) suggests that mainstreaming is ‘an enlargement of the stream of regular education … to accommodate children who present special needs.’ Clearly, mainstreaming is part of the wider trend of ‘normalization’. In his landmark book, The Futures of Children, Hobbs (1975) says that normalization implies that the handicapped person should be kept as close as possible to his natural setting and that the normal socializing agencies, the family, school and neighbourhood, should be used, rather than special agencies.