Published for the British Institute of Learning Disabilities

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities 2012, 0, 111

Young Childrens Attitudes Toward Peers with

Intellectual Disabilities: Effect of the Type of
School
Maria Georgiadi*, Efrosini Kalyva, Elias Kourkoutas* and Vlastaris Tsakiris
*University of Crete, Crete, Greece; The International Faculty of the University of Sheffield, City College, Thessaloniki, Greece; Special Needs
Educator, Thessaloniki, Greece

Accepted for publication 12 July 2012

Background This study explored typically developing

childrens attitudes towards peers with intellectual
disabilities, with special reference to the type of school
they attended.
Materials and Methods Two hundred and fifty-six Greek
children aged 910 (135 in inclusive settings) completed
a questionnaire and an adjective list by Gash (European
Journal of Special Needs Education 1993; 8, 106) and drew
a child with intellectual disabilities, commenting also on
their drawings.
Results Typically developing children expressed overall neutral attitudes towards peers with intellectual
disabilities. Type of school differentiated their attitudes,
with children from inclusive settings being more
positive towards peers with intellectual disabilities and
choosing less negative adjectives to describe them than

Introduction
Inclusion is defined as access to mainstream settings,
where children with special educational needs are
educated together with their typically developing
classmates through an array of useful and appropriate
activities (Blamires 1999). Despite the fact inclusion is
common practice nowadays in a variety of countries
(Van Kraayenoord 2003), it seems that only a small
percentage of students with intellectual disabilities are
fully included in regular education classrooms (11% in
the USA in 20022003 according to Smith & OBrien
2007). An underlying assumption of successful inclusive
programs is that all children will be included in the
learning and social communities of the school and
that classrooms in these schools will be so accepting
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

children from non-inclusive settings. Girls and students

who expressed more positive social, emotional and
overall attitudes towards students with intellectual
disabilities chose more positive adjectives to describe a
child with intellectual disabilities. It was also found
that children from inclusive settings drew children with
intellectual disabilities as more similar to a child with
Down syndrome in comparison with children from
non-inclusive settings.
Conclusions Effective inclusive practices should be
promoted to foster social acceptance of students with
intellectual disabilities.
Keywords: attitudes, inclusion, Intellectual disabilities,
peers

of diversity that no one will be left out from the very

beginning (McLeskey & Waldron 2007, p. 166).
Peer acceptance constitutes an important determinant
of successful inclusion (Lewis 1995), because social
rejection may contribute to the development of various
emotional and behavioural problems (Hay et al. 2004).
Many primary schools students with intellectual
disabilities feel rejected by their typically developing
peers and are rarely chosen as friends (Roberts &
Zubrick 1992; Sale & Carey 1995). Siperstein et al.
(2007a, p. 134) concluded from their review of relevant
studies that these findings are dramatic in that
children with intellectual disabilities were found to be
equally significantly more often rejected than their nondisabled peers in both integrated and segregated
settings.
10.1111/j.1468-3148.2012.00699.x

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

The social rejection of children with intellectual

disabilities can be partly attributed to their lack of basic
interpersonal/social skills, to their inability to exhibit
sophisticated psychosocial skills (Vaughn & Elbaum 1999;
Pearl & Donahue 2004) or to their deficits in the cognitive
component of the social domain of adaptive behaviour
that prevents them from making a judgment when
confronted with conflicting information in social challenges
(Leffert et al. 2010). Another variable that could account for
the social rejection experienced by children with
intellectual disabilities is the negative attitudes that
typically developing children tend to express towards
them, with Siperstein et al. (1988) recording a strong
connection between the negative attitudes of typically
developing children towards children with intellectual
disabilities and the actual social rejection of these
children. In fact, typically developing children express
more negative attitudes towards peers with intellectual
disabilities than peers with other disabilities (Lewis
1995; Kendall 2000; Georgiadi 2002).
Positive peer attitudes towards children with
intellectual disabilities, on the other hand, can facilitate
the normalization process (Antonak & Livneh 1991;
Henry et al. 1996) and the integration in mainstream
schools (Gash & Coffey 1995). The following factors are
consistently found to affect typically developing
childrens attitudes towards their peers with intellectual
disabilities: age with older children expressing more
negative attitudes (Townsend et al. 1993; Tang et al. 2000);
gender with girls being more favourable (Gash 1993;
Antonak & Harth 1994); attitudes of parents and teachers
towards individuals with intellectual disabilities
(Gollnick & Chinn 2002; McDougall et al. 2004); and
contact with children with intellectual disabilities
children in contact with a child with intellectual
disabilities express more positive attitudes, but have
more difficulty engaging in a personal interaction with
the specific child (Gash 1993; Manetti et al. 2001), the
presence of labels and the behavioural characteristics
of the child with intellectual disabilities (Siperstein
et al. 2007a,b).
The vast majority of relevant studies was conducted
mainly in North America, with some studies taking
place amongst schoolchildren in Zambia (Nabuzoka &
Ronning 1997), the United Kingdom (Furnham & Gibbs
1984), Italy (Manetti et al. 2001) and China (Siperstein
et al. 2011). There are many differences in the inclusion
practices of these countries, while Downs & Williams
(1994) found that even students from Western countries
differ in the nature of the attitudes that they express
towards their peers with intellectual disabilities. The

first inclusion law in Greece was implemented in 2001

(law 2817/2000, Ministry of Education 2001). It
recognized the rights of all children with disabilities to
be educated in the least restrictive environments, and it
was revised again in 2008 (law 3699/2008, Ministry of
Education 2008). The legislation 102357/G6 (2002)
provided detailed information about the implementation
of inclusion practices, and it provided guidelines about
which school children with disabilities should attend.
Children with mild disabilities (including children with
intellectual disabilities) can be integrated in the
mainstream school classroom (sometimes with the
parallel support of an educator) or can attend inclusion
classes during the first teaching hours and then return
to the mainstream school classroom. Children with
intellectual disabilities attend inclusion classes for no
more than 10 h per week (typically two teaching hours
per day) with other children with various disabilities,
while their main education takes place in the
mainstream school classroom together with their
typically developing peers. Inclusion classes provide
children with intellectual disabilities the opportunity to
study some difficult units, such as language or maths,
with the help of specialized instructors in small groups or
individually, but they do not substitute the mainstream
classroom where these children belong. Children with
moderate or severe disabilities attend independent
special schools there are some separate special
schools that accommodate a specific type of disability,
but not in all prefectures (Agorastou et al. 2009). In
the academic year 20052006, there were 11 094
children with disabilities in primary education (1.9%
of the total primary schoolchildren) almost one-fifth
(21.7%) attended normal or inclusion primary classes,
while the rest (78.3%) were in special primary schools.
The total number of students with intellectual
disabilities was 2389 (19.1% of all children with
disabilities) in pre-school and primary education
(Ministry of Education 2008).
The limited evidence suggests that in Greece, people
with intellectual disabilities seem to face many social
disapproval and numerous barriers to social participation.
It has been suggested that many Greeks tend to believe
that the birth of an individual with intellectual
disabilities may be a divine sign that the parents did
something bad (Room et al. 2001). Another study
conducted on attitudes towards disabilities in a
multicultural society found that members of the GreekAustralian community were among the least receptive
of people with disabilities, especially those with
intellectual disabilities (Westbrook et al. 1993). Given the
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Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

impact of culture in shaping views, attitudes and

understanding of difference and disability (Vlachou
1997; Tang et al. 2000), the present study aims to explore
the attitudes of typically developing children towards
peers with intellectual disabilities in Greece after the
implementation of the most recent inclusion law. The
effect of type of school (inclusive or non-inclusive setting)
on attitude formation towards peers with intellectual
disabilities will be examined, as well as the effect of
gender or previous experience with an individual with
intellectual disabilities.
Previous studies have used exclusively questionnaires
or adjective lists to explore the attitudes of children
towards their peers with intellectual disabilities. We
wanted to compliment the data that they derived from
using these traditional means and to avoid imposing
adult-centred meaning on childrens perceptions (Sapkota
& Sharma 1996). So, we asked the typically developing
children to draw a child with intellectual disabilities and
to write something about their drawings, to avoid the
difficult situation of asking them what their drawing was
about (Punch 2002). The use of this draw and write
technique will be used to supplement and enrich the
data collected through the questionnaire and the adjective
list.

Materials and methods

Participants
The sample of the present study consisted of a total of 256
typically developing children (135 boys and 152 girls)
aged 910 years old attending third (56.3%) and fourth
(43.8%) grade. Approximately half of these children
(52.7%) were in inclusive settings, while the remaining 47.3% were in non-inclusive settings. Typically
developing children in inclusive settings attended
mainstream schools where an inclusion classroom was
operating, but they were not in the same class with a
student with intellectual disabilities. Children with
intellectual disabilities spent some time in the inclusion
classrooms, but the majority of their day they attended
their mainstream classrooms. Children with intellectual
disabilities participated in school and classroom activities
together with their typically developing peers. Typically
developing children in non-inclusive settings attended
mainstream schools where no inclusion classroom or any
other form of special education or inclusion practice was
taking place and there was no diagnosed student with
intellectual disabilities in their classroom or in their
school.
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

The majority of the participants, who were recruited

from primary schools in the wider area of Crete in
Greece, had previous experience with an individual
with intellectual disabilities (64.5%). Crete is the biggest
island of Greece with a population of approximately
600 000 (6% of the Greek population). There are 40
primary schools with inclusion classes and 12 primary
special schools in a total of 1523 primary schools in the
whole island. The researchers drew first a list of the 40
primary schools with inclusion classes in Crete
(inclusive setting) and randomly selected one from each
of the four prefectures of the island. The next step was
to draw separate lists with the primary schools in each
prefecture that did not have inclusion classes or any
other form of special education (non-inclusive setting)
and to select one from each. Then, a class from the third
and the fourth grade was randomly picked from each
school, and the students were given informed consent
for their parents to fill out, to authorize their
participation. Of the 300 children who were initially
identified, the parents of 261 children consented to their
participation. The attrition was small (13%) and the
return rate satisfactory.

Materials
The participants were asked to complete the Gash (1993)
questionnaire on attitudes towards inclusion that
consists of three parts. It has been used with children
from other European countries to evaluate attitudes
towards intellectual disabilities (Gash et al. 2000) and
with children from Greece to evaluate attitudes towards
physical disabilities (Nikolaraizi & DeReybekiel 2001;
Kalyva & Agaliotis 2009). The first part of the
questionnaire started with the hypothetical scenario that
a new student with intellectual disabilities would come
to their class: I would like you to pretend that a new
child (it could be a boy or a girl) came to your class. He
or she has mental retardation (MR). Here are some
questions for you to answer; there are no right or wrong
answers. Consequently, based on this scenario, they
completed the questionnaire that contained 16 questions
relating to the sociability (10 items) and the schooling
(6 items) of children with MR. The schoolchildren had
to state their agreement by choosing one option on a
4-point Likert scale, where 1 = definitely yes and
4 = definitely no. In the second part of the questionnaire,
they were asked to describe the new student with MR to
a friend choosing among a list of 34 adjectives that are
either positively (e.g. clever) or negatively (e.g. stupid)
rated according to Gash (1993). They rated each adjective

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

as 1 = not representative, 2 = quite representative and

3 = very representative. Then, the participants had to
state whether there were any children with MR in their
school and whether they knew someone who had MR.
The first question helped the researchers to cross-check
that the participants were aware of the operation of the
inclusion classroom in their school. The second question
measured the experience/inexperience of the participants with individuals with MR. Although the term
intellectual disabilities has replaced the term MR
(Schalock et al. 2007), the researchers chose to use the
term MR when addressing the typically the participants,
because this is the term most typically used in Greece.
Finally, the draw and write technique, which is
widely employed to explore childrens beliefs about
health (Pridmore & Bendelow 1995; Bradding &
Horstman 1999), was also used in the present study.
Participants were given an A4 sheet of paper and a
pencil and were instructed to draw a child with MR
and to write a comment about the drawing that they
made. The advantage of using drawings is not only that
they are fun and creative, but also that children have
the necessary time to think about the theme that they
want to portray. They also have the time that they need
to make any changes and additions to produce the
desirable drawing (Shaver et al. 1993). In this study, the
researchers used drawings in an exploratory manner to
discover how children portray children with intellectual
disabilities. The drawings of the children were analysed
(A)

by two independent researchers specialized in

interpreting childrens drawings. The categorization
of the drawings resulted in four themes (semantic
categories), which were formed after a systematic process
of coding the verbal and non-verbal data: those connected
with the physical appearance (monsters, disfigurement,
Down syndrome), those showing problems in relationships and in activities (relationships), the size of the
figure (small figures) and those showing unpleasant
faces (unhappy). Once the categories were drawn,
each was rated on a dichotomous yes/no according to
whether it possessed a certain characteristic or not.
Inter-rater reliability was very high for all four
themes between 0.95 and 0.96. Two representative
drawings with accompanying comments are shown in
Figure 1A and B.

Procedure
The researchers went into the schools and gave out the
questionnaires and the paper and pencils. Then, they
read out loud the instructions to the students and
reminded them that they had the right to withdraw
from the study without any penalty. They asked for
their oral assent before starting the study, and five
children who did not want to participate were
excluded, leaving thus a sample of 256 students. The
order of administration of the measures was counterbalanced. So, half of the children filled in the
(B)

Figure 1 (A) Boy 9 years old, attends a non-inclusive school. He wrote: This child would be very upset with himself. He would not
be very good with lessons, but I would not make fun of him. We will take care of this child and look after him and (B) Boy 10.5
years old, attends an inclusive school. He wrote: Children with mental retardation, we must not consider them stupid, because we
all know that they have a knot in their brain. This child (in the drawing) tries to run away from school and to run away from the
children who hit him.
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Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

questionnaire and then did the drawing, while the other

half drew first and then completed the questionnaire.
The whole procedure lasted approximately 4045 min
and took place in the classroom and in the presence of
the researchers.

Table 1 Standardized loadings for three-factor confirmatory

model of attitudes towards peers with intellectual disabilities
for typically developing peers (n = 256)

Results

Factor 1: Social attitudes

Would you invite him/her to your
house to play in the evenings?
Would you invite him/her to your
birthday party with your other
friends?
Would you make him/her your
best friend?
Would you ask him/her to sit
beside you?
Would you chat to him/her at
break time?
Do you think children with MR
should be taught in the same
classroom as you?
Would you pick him/her on your
team in a competition?
Do children with MR prefer other
children with MR as friends?
Factor 2: Educational attitudes
Should children with MR have
their own special school where
all the children have MR?
Should children with MR have
their own special classroom in
your school?
Do you think that he/she would
have the same hobbies as the
other children in the class?
Factor 3: Emotional attitudes
Would you feel angry if he/she
did not keep the rules of your
games at play time?
Would you care if other children
made fun of the child with MR?
Would you feel afraid of him/her
because they had MR?

All the typically developing children who participated

in this study expressed overall neutral attitudes towards
their peers with intellectual disabilities (M = 26.32,
SD = 6.65). The scores are interpreted on a continuum
with 14 representing extremely positive attitudes and 56
representing extremely negative attitudes. Therefore, the
mean obtained in the study is close to the middle of this
continuum and represents neutral attitudes (Gash 1993;
Gash et al. 2000; Kalyva & Agaliotis 2009). Moreover, all
the typically developing children attending inclusion
settings (N = 135) were aware that there were children
with intellectual disabilities in their school.
The factorability of the 16 items of the questionnaire
on attitudes towards the inclusion of students with
intellectual disabilities questionnaire was examined.
KaiserMeyerOlkin measure of sampling adequacy was
0.82, which is very good and Bartletts test of sphericity
was significant (v278 = 765.97, P = 0.000). Finally, the
communalities were all above 0.3, further confirming
that each item shared common variance with other
items. Given these overall indicators, factor analysis was
conducted with all 16 items.
Principal component analysis was used because the
primary purpose was to identify and compute composing
characteristics for the factors underlying the attitudes
questionnaire. The initial eigenvalues showed that the
first factor explained 28.7% of the variance, the second
factor 12.8% of the variance and the third factor 10.8% of
the variance. Two and three-factor solutions were
examined, using both varimax and oblimin rotations of
the factor loading matrix. The three-factor solution was
preferred, although it was not consistent with Gashs
(1993) subscales, because of the levelling off of
eigenvalues and the clear theoretical distinction between
the three factors. During several steps, two items Would
you smile at him/her on the first day? and Later on,
would you tell him/her secrets that you usually keep for
your friends? were eliminated because they did not
contribute to a simple factor structure and failed to meet a
minimum criterion of having a primary factor loading of
0.4 or above. So, a principal components factor analysis
was conducted on the remaining 14 items, with the three
factors explaining 52.3% of the variance. The factor
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Items

Factor
1

Factor
2

Factor
3

0.76
0.77

0.74
0.73
0.73
0.60

0.59
0.57

0.74

0.68

0.62

0.71

0.70
0.62

loading matrix for this final solution is presented in

Table 1.
Internal consistency for each of the scales was
examined using Cronbachs alpha, and the results are as
follows: Factor 1 social attitudes towards students
with intellectual disabilities (8 items) = 0.83; Factor 2
educational attitudes towards students with intellectual
disabilities (3 items) = 0.72; Factor 3 emotional
attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

(3 items) = 0.68; and whole scale (14 items) = 0.78. No

substantial changes in alpha for any of the scales could
have been achieved by eliminating more items.
Composite scores were created for each of the three
factors, based on the mean of the items, which had their
loadings on each factor. Higher scores indicated less
positive attitudes towards students with intellectual
disabilities.
Attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities
were regressed on gender, type of school and previous
experience with an individual with intellectual
disabilities. These three predictors accounted for almost a
quarter of the variance in attitudes towards students with
intellectual disabilities (R2 = 0.28). Type of school
(b = 0.18, P = 0.004) demonstrated significant effects on
attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities,
while gender and previous experience with an individual
with intellectual disabilities did not have an effect on
attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities
(b = 0.05, P = 0.447) and (b = 0.08, P = 0.210), respectively. MANOVA was carried out to determine differences in
the three factors that were considered important for the
attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities
according to typically developing children from inclusive
and non-inclusive settings, as shown in Table 2. MANOVA
showed that schoolchildren attending inclusive settings
expressed more positive social attitudes (F1,254 = 8.37,
P = 0.004) and overall attitudes (F1,254 = 8.29, P = 0.004)
towards students with intellectual disabilities than
schoolchildren attending non-inclusive settings. There
was no difference between schoolchildren attending
inclusive and non-inclusive settings in their educational
attitudes (F1,254 = 2.05, P = 0.154) and in their emotional
Table 2 Means and standard deviations of attitudes of
typically developing primary schoolchildren towards peers
with intellectual disabilities according to the type of school

Attitudes
Social1
Educational2
Emotional2
Overall
attitudes2

Inclusive
M (SD)
12.55
7.19
5.45
25.26

(4.67)
(2.49)
(1.91)
(5.99)

Noninclusive
M (SD)
14.2 (4.48)
7.62 (2.33)
5.53 (2.23)
27.27 (5.17)

Total
M (SD)
13.42
7.42
5.49
26.32

Lower scores indicate more positive attitudes.

*P < 0.005.
1
Score range: 832.
2
Score range: 416.

(4.69)
(2.42)
(2.06)
(5.65)

F1,254
8.37*
2.05
0.09
8.29*

attitudes (F1,254 = 0.09, P = 0.766) towards students with

intellectual disabilities.
The factorability of the 34 adjectives that typically
developing children could choose to describe students
with intellectual disabilities questionnaire was examined.
KaiserMeyerOlkin measure of sampling adequacy was
0.86, which is very good and Bartletts test of sphericity
was significant (v2351 = 2401.15, P < 0.001). Finally, the
communalities were all above 0.3, further confirming that
each item shared common variance with other items.
Given these overall indicators, factor analysis was
conducted with all 34 items.
Principal component analysis was used because the
primary purpose was to identify and compute
composing characteristics for the factors underlying the
adjectives chosen to describe a child with intellectual
disabilities. The initial eigenvalues showed that the first
factor explained 24.4% of the variance and the second
factor 19% of the variance. Two, three and four factor
solutions were examined, using both varimax and
oblimin rotations of the factor loading matrix. The twofactor solution was preferred because of its theoretical
support, the levelling off of eigenvalues and the clear
theoretical distinction between the two factors. During
several steps, seven adjectives were eliminated (spa,
twit, different, shy, sloppy, sad, ashamed and shy)
because they did not contribute to a simple factor
structure and failed to meet a minimum criterion of
having a primary factor loading of 0.4 or above. So, a
principal components factor analysis was conducted on
the remaining 27 items, with the two factors explaining
43.4% of the variance. The factor loading matrix for this
final solution is presented in Table 3.
Internal consistency for each of the scales was
examined using Cronbachs alpha, and the results are as
follows: Factor 1 negative adjectives (17 items) = 0.77
and Factor 2 positive adjectives (10 items) = 0.68. No
substantial changes in alpha for any of the scales could
have been achieved by eliminating more items.
Composite scores were created for each of the two
factors, based on the mean of the items, which had their
loadings on each factor.
The number of negative adjectives chosen to
describe a child with intellectual disabilities was
regressed on gender, type of school, previous experience
with an individual with intellectual disabilities, social,
educational, emotional and overall attitudes towards
students with intellectual disabilities. These seven
predictors accounted for more than a third of the
variance in the number of negative adjectives chosen to
describe a child with intellectual disabilities (R2 = 0.41).
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Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

Table 3 Standardized loadings for two-factor confirmatory

model of adjectives chosen to describe children with intellectual
disabilities by typically developing peers (n = 256)
Items
Factor 1: Negative adjectives
Dumb
Untidy
Dirty
Idiot
Thick
Rough
Stupid
Crazy
Moron
Scary
Retarded
Bold
Simple
Freak
Nerd
Geek
Dork
Factor 2: Positive adjectives
Friendly
Kind
Careful
Special
Tender
Lovable
Neat
Clever
Happy
Nice

Factor 1

Factor 2

0.78
0.77
0.75
0.74
0.73
0.71
0.70
0.68
0.62
0.59
0.58
0.57
0.56
0.56
0.49
0.48
0.47
0.72
0.68
0.67
0.63
0.57
0.48
0.47
0.45
0.43
0.42

Gender (b = 0.17, P = 0.007) and type of school

(b = 0.15, P = 0.020) demonstrated significant effects
on the number of negative adjectives chosen to describe
a child with intellectual disabilities, while previous
experience with an individual with intellectual
disabilities, social, educational, emotional and overall
attitudes towards students with intellectual disabilities
did not have an effect on the number of negative
adjectives chosen to describe a child with intellectual
disabilities (b = 0.01, P = 0.965), (b = 0.03, P = 0.756),
(b = 0.02, P = 0.810), (b = 0.07, P = 0.386) and (b = 0.01,
P = 0.960), respectively. Post hoc analysis showed that
(i) boys chose more negative adjectives (M = 29.15,
SD = 2.12) to describe students with intellectual
disabilities
(t1,254 = 3.03,
P = 0.003)
than
girls
(M = 28.20, SD = 2.79); and (ii) schoolchildren attending
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

inclusive settings chose less negative adjectives (M =

28.18, SD = 2.48) to describe students with intellectual
disabilities (t1,254 = 5.94, P = 0.015) than schoolchildren attending non-inclusive settings (M = 28.18,
SD = 2.48).
The number of positive adjectives chosen to describe
a child with intellectual disabilities was regressed on
gender, type of school, previous experience with an
individual
with
intellectual
disabilities,
social,
educational, emotional and overall attitudes towards
students with intellectual disabilities. These seven
predictors accounted for approximately one third of the
variance in the number of positive adjectives chosen to
describe a child with intellectual disabilities (R2 = 0.34).
Emotional attitudes (b = 0.36, P = 0.000), overall
attitudes (b = 0.28, P = 0.000) and social attitudes
(b = 0.15, P = 0.026) towards students with intellectual
disabilities demonstrated significant effects on the
number of positive adjectives chosen to describe a child
with intellectual disabilities, while gender, type of
school, previous experience with an individual with
intellectual disabilities and educational attitudes
towards students with intellectual disabilities did not
have an effect on the number of positive adjectives
chosen to describe a child with intellectual disabilities
(b = 0.03,
P = 0.653),
(b = 0.12,
P = 0.052),
(b = 0.09, P = 0.165) and (b = 0.05, P = 0.190),
respectively. More specifically children who expressed
more positive social, emotional and overall attitudes
towards students with intellectual disabilities tended to
choose more positive adjectives to describe students
with intellectual disabilities.
Analysis with chi square showed that there were
differences in the drawings of the participants
according to the type of school that they attended, but
not according to their gender or previous experience
with an individual with intellectual disabilities
(Table 4). Schoolchildren attending inclusive settings
drew a child with intellectual disabilities as less
similar to a monster (v2 = 5.55, d.f. = 1, P = 0.018) and
as more similar to a child with Down syndrome
(v2 = 19.47, d.f. = 1, P < 0.001) than their peers
attending non-inclusive settings. Finally, analysis with
chi square showed that there were no differences in
the comments of the drawings of the participants
according to the type of school that they attended. It
should be noted that the comments that children
made about their drawings revolved around
emotional, social and academic themes, while in the
comment of Drawing B, there is some evidence of
bullying.

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

Table 4 Percentages of drawings and comments made for a

child with intellectual disabilities by typically developing
primary schoolchildren according to their type of school
Type of school

Drawings
Monsters
Disfigurement
Small figures
Down syndrome
Unhappy
Comments
Love
Unhappy
Special school
Relationships
Negative
Feel sorry
Different

v2

Inclusive (%)

Non-inclusive (%)

13.5
72.9
27.1
36.8
25.6

25.2
66.4
32.8
12.6
34.5

5.55*
1.28
0.98
19.47*
2.37

45.9
11.3
26.3
19.5
17.3
6.8
7.5

43.7
17.6
19.3
11.8
10.9
10.1
10.9

0.12
2.11
1.73
2.85
2.08
0.91
1.94

*P < 0.05.

Discussion
The aim of the present study was to explore typically
developing childrens attitudes towards their peers with
intellectual disabilities and to identify any differences
according to the type of school that they attended
(inclusive versus non-inclusive setting), as well as their
gender and previous experience with an individual with
intellectual disabilities. It was found that typically
developing children expressed overall neutral attitudes
towards their peers with intellectual disabilities. This
finding is contradictory to this of Siperstein et al.s (1988,
2007a,b) who reported that typically developing children
tend to express negative attitudes towards their peers
with intellectual disabilities. It is also quite surprising
given the reported negative general perception of
individuals with intellectual disabilities in Greece (Room
et al. 2001). It could be attributed, although, to the fact
that Greek teachers express similar attitudes towards
students with intellectual disabilities (Avramidis &
Kalyva 2007) and teachers attitudes tend to influence
their students (McDougall et al. 2004). It is also likely that
as many of these children had some contact with an
individual with intellectual disabilities, they held less
negative attitudes (Siperstein et al. 2007a,b). However,
there is no indication as to which extent the attitudes that
were expressed towards children with intellectual

disabilities have been generalized to other settings and

actually practiced that is, whether children would
actually interact with peers with intellectual disabilities in
and out of school and consider them as their friends
(Magiati et al. 2002).
The type of school (inclusive versus non-inclusive
setting) was found to differentiate typically developing
childrens attitudes towards peers with intellectual
disabilities. More specifically, it was found that children
from inclusive settings tend to hold overall more
positive attitudes towards their peers with intellectual
disabilities than children from non-inclusive settings.
This finding is supported also by studies on a range of
disabilities (Diamond & Carpenter 2000; Favazza et al.
2000; Krajewski & Hyde 2000). It could be partly
explained by the fact that children from inclusive
settings in the current study were in the same school
with peers with mild intellectual disabilities attending
inclusion classes, who tend to receive more positive
social feedback than children with more severe
intellectual disabilities (Calhoun & Elliott 1977; Casey
et al. 1988; Manetti et al. 2001).
Typically developing children attending inclusive
settings expressed more positive social attitudes
towards their peers with intellectual disabilities in
comparison with children from non-inclusive settings,
while no differences were observed in educational or
emotional attitudes. This finding is really important
given the documented social rejection experienced by
children with intellectual disabilities (Siperstein et al.
2007a,b). Previous experience with an individual with
intellectual disabilities did not have any significant
effect on the attitudes or the choice of adjectives as was
the case in other studies (Gash 1993; Manetti et al. 2001).
This could be attributed to methodological limitations
resulting from measuring contact with just one question
and might be resolved in future studies with the use of
more elaborate measures of type or frequency of
previous experience (Avramidis & Kalyva 2006). Gender
did not have an effect on attitudes towards students
with intellectual disabilities, but girls chose more
positive adjectives to describe a child with intellectual
disabilities and this is in line with studies suggesting
that girls are more favourable (Gash 1993; Antonak &
Harth 1994).
Although it cannot be argued that the mere placement
of children with and without disabilities in the same
school can automatically foster positive social interactions
(Dore et al. 2002; Gash et al. 2004), it is possible to
decrease negative sociability that may be caused by
ignorance, fear of the unknown or feelings of insecurity
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

(Ward et al. 1994). Siperstein et al. (2007a,b) actually

reported that typically developing youths perceptions of
the abilities of children with intellectual disabilities
significantly influence their willingness to interact with these
peers. This speculation is further supported by another
finding of this study namely that children attending
inclusive settings chose less negative adjectives to
describe their peers with intellectual disabilities than
children from non-inclusive settings. The stronger
evidence in favour of Siperstein et al.s (2007a,b) claim is
that students who expressed positive, social, emotional
and overall attitudes towards students with intellectual
disabilities were more likely to choose positive adjectives
to describe students with intellectual disabilities.
However, the choice of positive adjectives is not
necessarily translated into positive behaviour towards
children with intellectual disabilities in real life. In fact,
the comment that was made by a child in inclusive
setting and is presented in Drawing B indicates
potential bullying behaviour against children with
intellectual disabilities, and it draws attention to the
discrepancy between reported attitudes and actual
behaviours. It also stresses the need to implement
triangulation methods and more projective techniques to
measure attitudes, especially with children who are
more prone to offer socially desirable answers
(Avramidis & Kalyva 2006). Manetti et al. (2001) who
compared expressed attitudes to sociometric measures
found significant discrepancies between the two. To
partly overcome this limitation, the researchers in this
study asked the typically developing children to draw a
child with intellectual disabilities and to write a
comment about their drawing, but further studies
should use more indirect measures of attitudes.
Childrens drawings were analysed in terms of the
themes that arose (their size, facial expression and
similarity to a monster, a disfigured person or a
person with Down syndrome). It is important to note
that these categories derived from the childrens
drawings without any intervention or guidance from
the researchers. It was found that children from
inclusive settings depicted the child with intellectual
disabilities as more similar to a child with Down
syndrome and as less likely to a monster than
children from non-inclusive settings. Children in
inclusive settings in this study were as previously
mentioned in contact with peers with mild intellectual
disabilities, and this could have made their portrayal
less frightening. Moreover, the use of the label child
with Down syndrome used by teaching staff to
describe actual students with intellectual disabilities in
2012 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

the particular inclusive settings may have influenced

the drawing of the children attending them (Siperstein
et al. 2007a,b).
The comments that children made about their
drawings revolved around emotional, social and
academic themes, matching closely the three categories
that derived from the factor analysis of the questionnaire
that they answered. This finding is very interesting
keeping in mind that half of the participants completed
this task before actually filling in the questionnaire. It
could lend further support to the notion that attitudes
towards peers with intellectual disabilities do not refer
only to academic skills, but also to emotional and social
dimensions (Antonak & Harth 1994) and that the nature
of interactions between students with and without
disabilities depends on several factors, such as the
instructional format, the proximity of general and special
educators, and curricular areas (Carter et al. 2008). No
differences were detected in childrens comments
according to the type of school that they attended.
It is important to remember that it is positive and
not neutral attitudes that foster peer inclusion and
acceptance, but positive attitudes are taught through
planned social contact between the students and
appropriate teacher training and are not achieved by
random placement (Zielger 2001). Moreover, it should
be noted that the extent to which contact is voluntary or
imposed might affect the formation of attitudes towards
peers with intellectual disabilities, while an unpleasant
experience with a person with intellectual disabilities,
especially in childhood, is strongly associated with
negative attitudes in adulthood (Tachibana 2005). These
are factors that could be further explored in future
studies and should be taken into consideration when
contemplating this studys findings,
The present study explores the attitudes of typically
developing children towards their peers with intellectual
disabilities in a context where inclusion practices were
recently introduced and enforced, while there is also a
stigmatizing tendency towards individuals with
intellectual disabilities. It was found that typically
developing children express overall neutral attitudes
towards their peers with intellectual disabilities, with
children from inclusive settings being more accepting
than children from non-inclusive settings. Girls chose
more positive adjectives to describe students with
intellectual disabilities than boys, and students who
expressed positive, social, emotional and overall attitudes
towards students with intellectual disabilities were more
likely to choose positive adjectives to describe students
with intellectual disabilities.

10

Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities

Correspondence
Any correspondence should be directed to Efrosini
Kalyva, City College, 24 Proxenou Koromila Street, 546 22,
Thessaloniki, Greece (e-mail: kalyva@city.academic.gr).

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