SAUDI TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS OF THE IMPACT OF INCLUSION ON SOCIAL INTERACTION AMONG CHILDREN WITH HEARING IMPAIRMENT

Abstract

The issue of including children with hearing impairment has become a debatable issue, because there are advantages and disadvantages of inclusion. Thus, exploring the attitudes of teachers regarding the influence of inclusion on social interaction in hearing-impaired children is important in the Saudi context, since there is no sufficient research focusing on the function of inclusive education in the development of social interaction in Saudi context. Children with hearing impairment included in inclusive schools late in Saudi Arabia; hence, many hearing-impaired students are still educated in special schools, while others in inclusive schools need more services in order to meet their needs, and students with hearing impairment are subjected to the risk of bullying. The current research applies semi-structured interviews, including five inclusive school teachers of children with hearing impairment in three primary schools in Taif city. The results of this research discovered that the is no link between the experience and positive attitudes of teachers towards inclusion, where their perceptions were slightly negative, even though the long experience they had in teaching children with hearing impairment in inclusive schools. This may be because of the resources provided in inclusive schools, the lack in training workshops, the non-cooperation between teachers and parents, the degree of hearing impairment in students included in inclusive schools that may be less than others studying in special schools, the number of students that is fewer in classroom, and the working hours that is less in mainstream school. Additionally, there does not appear to be link between positive attitudes and teachers being qualified, as the research come up with that the majority of interviewee were qualified and knowledgeable of teaching children with hearing impairment properly, because they apply different strategies contributing in helping develop social interaction, for example, peer-mediated interventions, friends of hearing-impaired and playing strategy, even though the perceptions were still negative. In spite of the beliefs of teacher in raising the awareness of the parents, inclusive schools do not provide workshop training for parents of hearing-impaired children in the development of social interaction. Moreover, the society still had the negative belief of what disabled children are. The research also found that the cooperation between teachers and parents are the key issue in raising the social interaction of children with hearing impairment.