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| Teachers’ Perception
of Children with Learning Disabilities |
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ABSTRACT of Thesis by
Buttigieg Manolita & Mifsud Mario
In this dissertation we focused on how class
teachers perceive children with Learning Disabilities.
This aspect of research is relatively new and
we had difficulty finding research and literature.
Therefore in the Literature review we will be
looking at different definitions both British
(SpLD) and American. In the Literature review
we will also examine the causes of Learning Disabilities
and some of the characteristics that children
with Learning Disabilities exhibit followed by
the presentation of a study by Haynes (2000)
and Özkardes (2001).
The role of the class teachers is to observe
the children’s characteristics in order
to produce ways that will cater for their needs.
Thus the inevitable question arises: How do teachers
perceive children with Learning Disabilities
in the classrooms? The target groups identified
were different schools from different localities
in the Maltese context: State and Non-State schools.
This research is a replication study from Haynes
(2001). Through questionnaires we gathered data
in order to find out how Maltese teachers identify
children with Learning Disabilities.
Teachers had to identify children with Learning
Disabilities and rate their abilities in different
skills. From our data, it is evident that Maltese
children with Learning Disabilities have great
difficulties in Listening, Speaking, Reading,
Writing, Mathematics and Study skills. It was
interesting to find out, when comparing our results
with those of USA, Japan and Turkey that our
findings were very similar to those of USA. On
the other hand Japan and Turkey had similar results;
Japanese and Turkish teachers rated significantly
higher percentages of children as weak in social
skills. This indicates that Maltese and USA teachers
emphasise more the academic aspect of the curriculum
while Japanese and Turkish teachers emphasise
more the social aspect of the curriculum.
B.Ed.(Hons)
Keywords:
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