Teachers’ attitudes towards the inclusion of children with selective mutism into mainstream settings

Research literature has highlighted a link between teachers' attitudes and perceptions of children with various special educational needs (SEN) and teachers' behaviour in the classroom. It has also revealed a link between teachers' attitudes and perceptions and the outcomes for children with SEN.

In this thesis a systematic literature review examining teachers' attitudes and perceptions of children with speech and language difficulties, focused on the in-depth analysis of 9 peer reviewed papers concerning this topic.

This review found contradictory evidence for the effect of factors, such as the teacher's age, sex, years of teaching experience, contact experience and knowledge on teachers' attitudes. Evidence was found that teachers' often hold negative perceptions of children with speech and language difficulties in terms of their educational achievements and likely progress, social competence and success and behaviour.

Despite this, the evidence reviewed suggested that teachers' tended to hold positive attitudes toward the inclusion of children with speech and language difficulties into mainstream settings.

The systematic review revealed that research concerning teachers' attitudes often lacks a theoretical underpinning. The majority of studies included in this review also commonly neglected to examine teachers' attitudes in relation to other variables or consider the issue of attitudes towards inclusion of children with special educational needs.

In order to rectify some of these points and research teachers' attitudes towards a group of children with whom no other systematic research had previously been conducted the empirical paper sought to answer the question: 'What are teachers' attitudes towards the inclusion of children with SM into mainstream settings?'

An online questionnaire, based on a number of pre-existing measures and those designed by the author was administered to Primary School teachers in one Local Authority to investigate this topic.

The empirical paper includes the findings of the analysis of the responses of 234 teachers and examined 3 components of teachers' attitudes towards inclusion (cognitive, affective and conative), it sought to investigate the relationship between teachers' attitudes and the favourability of adjectives teachers' associated with a child with SM and the availability of educational environment support.

It also examined the existence of any differences between teachers' attitudes and teacher related variables identified in a systematic review.

The results of analyses revealed a relationship between each component of attitude. They also showed that the favourability of child related variables was linked to each component of teachers' attitudes.

The availability of physically based support in the educational environment was also linked to teachers' attitudes towards the inclusion of children with SM into mainstream settings, and the availability of human and general support to teaches' intentions towards action.

Teachers' attitudes towards this issue were also significantly different in terms of their gender, the grade level taught they taught, their self reported knowledge and teaching experience with a child or children with a diagnosis of SM.