A comparison of social skills in Turkish children with visual impairments, children with intellectual impairments and typically developing children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to compare the social skills of five groups of children: children with visual impairments attending inclusive education schools, children with visual impairments attending schools for the blind, children with intellectual impairments attending inclusive education schools, children with intellectual impairments attending segregated special education schools, and typically developing children. A hundred and sixty-nine children aged from 7 to 12 participated in the study. The children's social skills were rated by their teachers on the Social Skills Rating System (SSRS) – Turkish Form. The results suggested significant group differences between children attending inclusive education schools and children attending special education schools. Analysis of the findings indicated that children with visual impairments and children with intellectual impairments had poorer social skills than typically developing children; however children with visual impairments and children with intellectual impairments attending inclusive education schools had higher social skills than children attending segregated special education schools. The findings of the study were discussed and suggestions for future research were provided.

Keywords:

• social skills
• inclusive education
• visual impairments
• intellectual impairments

Notes on contributors

Ufuk Ozkubat holds a master's degree from Special Education and is a doctoral candidate in the Special Education Department at Gazi University, Turkey. He has been a special education teacher since 2007. His research includes designing inclusive education programmes for children with special needs. His other research interests focus on social skills of children with special needs including autism spectrum disorders, visual impairments and specific learning disabilities.

Selda Ozdemir is an associate professor in the Department of Special Education at Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey. Prior to joining Gazi University, she received her master's degree in Special Education from Syracuse University (2001) and Ph.D. degree in Special Education from Arizona State University (2006). Her research interests focus primarily on two lines of inquiry: research leading to a better understanding of social emotional difficulties in children with special needs and designing effective interventions to improve children's social development.