Attitudes of Children with Hearing Loss towards Public Inclusive Education

Abstract

Background: This study raised the following problem: How reliable is the Inclusion for ChildrenandAdolescentsQuestionnaire (ICAQ) when measuring the attitudes of students with hearing loss towards inclusive education (IE) in public schools in the Canary Islands? Methods: The sample consisted of 297 students from the province of Gran Canaria, and 137 students from the province of Tenerife,withanaverageageof11yearsold. Anexploratoryfactoranalysisdeterminedthereliability and relevance of ICAQ. Results: The authors found four factors of students’ attitudes towards IE: Familyinvolvementanduseoftechnology,inclusioninthecentre,communicationwithmedicalspecialists, and assessment of the support technology. Conclusion: There were significant differences between the studentswithhearinglossintermsofthefollowingfactors: Inclusioninthecentreandassessmentofthe supporttechnology. Thetotalscoreofstudents’attitudestowardsIEwashigh. Thispieceofresearchis very important for the governing body of any school administration, especially in relation to schools’ educational planning and IE.