Social acceptance of the physically handicapped child in the ordinary school.

It has been recommended by both the Snowdon and Warnock reports that greater efforts should be made to provide integrated education for physically handicapped children. The attitudes of the peer group toward the child with a physical handicap are of particular importance in deciding whether to integrate or segregate the disabled child. The present paper reports an exploratory study carried out in schools in Scotland, the purpose of which was to examine the social acceptability of the physically handicapped child in the ordinary school. The subjects, 38 children in the age group 9--11 years, of normal intelligence and with visible physical handicaps affecting movement, were drawn from ordinary day schools. A normal sample of control children was also studied. A modified version of Centers & Centers Social Discrimination test (1963) was administered. The results obtained show that physically handicapped children were not so well accepted by their peers as were their normal controls. The only characteristics which were positively related to social acceptability of the physically handicapped were certain components of emotional adjustment, extraversion and teachers' estimates of their mathematical ability. It is suggested that peer acceptance might be enhanced by greater dissemination of information and advice to both teachers and the normal peer group.