The academic and social inclusion of oral deaf and hard-of-hearing children in Cyprus secondary general education: investigating the perspectives of the stakeholders

摘要

This paper reports the results of a study which has been carried out for the first time in Cyprus, with the aim of exploring the views of deaf and hard-of-hearing (D/HH) children (who attend secondary general schools, and use an auditory/oral approach), as well as the perceptions of their parents, teachers and head teachers on their academic and social inclusion. For the purposes of this study, four questionnaires were designed to be administered to all D/HH children attending secondary general schools (n = 69), as well as to their parents (n = 61), to their teachers (n = 367) and to their head teachers (n = 34) with a view to investigating their perceptions on inclusion. The data were analysed statistically and they revealed that the majority of the D/HH children had been included well socially and had achieved a reasonable academic standard. Our study also brought out that the D/HH children's communicative skills were positively related to their academic and social inclusion. It was shown that D/HH children's academic inclusion has been facilitated by a number of resources provided, the most important being pre-tutoring sessions, in-service training provided for designated teachers, and modification of normal classroom delivery. Deaf awareness of hearing children and general teachers were also found to be positively related with D/HH children's social inclusion.