Attitudes and Knowledge of Parents and Teachers About Speech Disorders: Nicosia Sample

İmge Bora Bülent Toğram
Abstract

Introduction: Parents' participation in monitoring their children's health and development is important. Understanding parental opinions is crucial in determining parental roles and attitudes and for early identification of problems/disorders in children (Hall ve Elliman, 2003). Knowing the attitudes of parents and teachers towards speech and language intervention programs improves the effectiveness of the program, increases its productivity, shortens the process and ensures cooperation (Çelebi, 2005). In order to parent/teacher involvement to be effective and continuous, parent/teachers’ attitudes towards speech and language disorders must be identified. Turkey and many other countries have carried out studies to determine the attitudes of parents and teachers regarding speech therapy, however, no such study was undertaken in the TRNC. The aim of this study was, to assess attitudes and knowledge of parents and teachers of children with and without speech disorder in Nicosia, TRNC. Method: The total number of participants was 191; 34 parents of children with a speech disorder, 57 parents of children without a speech disorder, 64 teachers who had at least one student with a speech disorder, 36 teachers who did not have any students with a speech disorder. The questionnaire used in this study, "Attitude and Information Questionnaire for Speech and Language Disorders" was developed and used in Toğram and Mavis (2009). For this study, the Questionnaire was divided into two sections to facilitate the involvement of the teachers and parents separately: "Awareness of Speech and Language Disorders – Teachers’ Questionnaire" and "Awareness of Speech and Language Disorders – Parents’ Questionnaire". The first part of the questionnaires was prepared to obtain demographic information of participants and their children. In the section ‘Thoughts about the speech disordered child's academic/social future and therapy', there were a total of 20 attitude items in each of the questionnaire versions, 10 items on ‘Academic and Social Achievement and Skills of Children with Speech Disorders' and 10 items on ‘Speech Therapy Essentials’. Likert-type quintile scale was used: "absolutely disagree (1)", "disagree (2)", "not sure (3)", "agree" (4), "strongly agree" (5). Higher scores indicated more positive results. The ‘Thoughts on Speech Disorders’ section contains 6 items on the causes of speech disorders and participants were expected to put these items in order of importance according to their own priorities and beliefs. The 'Sufficiency’ section was the last part of the questionnaire and there were 6 items in this section that aim to obtain information about the lack opportunities for therapy. The participants were, again, expected to put the items in order of importance according to their priorities and considerations. The questionnaires were given to the parents before therapy in the Marmara Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation & Speech and Language Disorders Centre in the TRNC, Nicosia for the group of children with speech disorders. Surveys to be answered by the teachers in this group were delivered to the teachers by the  parents. For the group of children without a speech disorder, both parent and teacher surveys were given to the teachers at the selected schools and teachers were asked to give the parents the parents version. Only one parent (mother or father) and only class teachers completed the questionnaires. 204 of the 250 total questionnaires wer ereturned to the researcher and the turnover rate of the questionnaires was 81.6. Arithmetic mean ± standard deviation values are used for descriptive statistics. Independent samples t-tests were used to analyse the differences in the attitudes of parents and teachers with and without a child with a speech disorder, the educational status of the participants and the level of education of children, speech disorders diagnosis, and teachers' branches. Analyses of parents and teachers’ attitudes according to age, working duration of teachers were obtained using one-way analysis of variance, ANOVA, followed by Tukey HSD analysis in the following binary comparisons. Results and discussion: There was no significant difference between the attitudes of teachers with and without students with a speech disorder in their classroom regarding the children’s academic and social skills. Both groups seemed to have doubts about the academic and social success of the child with a speech disorder. Similarly, no significant difference was found between the two parent groups about the attitudes towards the child's academic and social success. Same as the teachers, parents with or without a child with a speech disorder also had doubts in this regard. Also, on the necessity for therapy, there was no significant difference in the attitudes of the teachers with and without students with a speech disorder in their classrooms. All teacher participants seem to be positive about the necessity for therapy. Similarly, there was no difference in the attitudes of the parents of children with and without speech impairments towards the necessity for therapy. In general, the attitudes of both groups were also positive. The study also examined how all groups prioritized the causes for speech disorders. The difference between the two teacher groups was not significant. However, the teacher group with a child with a speech disorder listed mental impairment as the most important reason while the teacher group without a child with a speech disorder listed psychological problems as the most important reason for speech disorders. Differences were observed between the prioritization of the two parent groups. The most important of these differences was that parents with a child with a speech disorder listed physical problems related to speech organs as most important cause while the group without a child with a speech disorder listed this cause as the second most insignificant cause. As for reasons for lack of therapy opportunities, there was almost no difference between the teachers with and without students with speech disorder in their class and between parents with and without children a child with a speech disorder.


Keywords

Speech disorder, attitude and knowledge, parents, teachers


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