Preservice Special Education Teachers' Discourse During Shared Reading Among Children With and Without Visible Disabilities

• In Event: Sheraton Roundtable Session 39
  In Roundtable Session: Adapting and Differentiating Instruction: Serving Students With Special Needs

Abstract

The study presents pre-service special education teachers’ attitudes and how they read books to children with seen or unseen disabilities. Forty students from special education training programs completed questionnaires on their attitudes towards people with disabilities. Additionally, each student read two books to a child with no disabilities, a child with learning disabilities, and a child with cerebral palsy. 480 transcriptions were analyzed and evaluated for discourse style. While the pre-service teachers reported positive attitudes towards people with disabilities, they reduced their discourse with the students with disabilities. The study emphasizes the need to deepen our understanding of pre-service teachers’ attitudes and expectations from their students, for their own awareness and for those who teach in education programs.

Authors

• yael Roth-Barkai, Tel Aviv University

• Dorit Aram, Tel Aviv University