AWARENESS OF EDUCATION WORKERS ABOUT DOWN SYNDROME

Abstract

Inclusive education of children with Down syndrome is the ubiquitous form of education in the world, and educators are expected to be sufficiently informed about the general characteristics of these children to meet their needs in a regular class. The research aims to examine the information level of educators about Down syndrome. The sub-goals are to determine differences in the general information level of educators^[1] about Down syndrome concerning socio-demographic variables (age, gender, length of service, experience working with children with disabilities, occupation). The sample was convenient and consisted of 100 educators who gave informed consent to participate in the research. The information level about Down syndrome was examined by a survey compiled for research purposes. Due to the unevenness of the subsample concerning the socio-demographic variables Mann-Whitney U test and Kruskal Wallis H test were used to process the obtained data. The results showed that educators are well informed about Down syndrome. There are no differences concerning gender, occupation (kindergarten teachers/ elementary school teachers), length of service, and experience in working with children with disabilities. Differences were found concerning age, and educators of the youngest age group (from 20 to 30 years old) are the best informed about Down syndrome. The results should be analyzed concerning the limitations of the research related to the sample and the survey, and therefore there is a need to repeat it in the future.

[1] The term “educators” will be used in the paper because the sample included kindergarten teachers and teachers from regular elementary schools.