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The Integration Experience of Hearing Impaired Elementary School Students in Separated and Integrated School Settings
- American Annals of the Deaf
- Gallaudet University Press
- Volume 155, Number 3, Summer 2010
- pp. 369-376
- 10.1353/aad.2010.0015
- Article
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Integration Experiences of hearing impaired German elementary school students in separate educational settings (n = 31) were compared with those of counterparts at the same level in integrated settings (n = 26), and evaluated in regard to psychosocial behavior, semantic-lexical abilities, and communicative skills. Analysis of questionnaire responses and intelligence subtests showed that the only difference between the samples concerned perceived well-being in school, and favored the integrated students. Other percentages of variance are explainable by school type (10%), parents' hearing status (12%), and use of bimodal communication (11%). The integrated students demonstrated a higher level of integration experience, associated with fewer psychosocial abnormalities and better communicative skills. The results indicate that educational setting is not the only factor influencing students' perceived well-being. Other contextual factors, e.g., hearing status of parents and communicative skills, have a similar positive impact on integration experiences.