Poster #68 - Academic adjustment of Brazilian students with intellectual disabilities: the role of school climate

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Education, Schooling

Integrative Statement

Students with intellectual disabilities (ID) faces many challenges in their educational trajectory. Beyond obstacles related to academic achievement, their relations in schools could be affected by harassment and victimization. Nonetheless, the authoritative school climate framework postulates that schools with both support and disciplinary structure could be environments with positive outcomes, such as academic adjustment. However, few studies address such relations in Brazilian schools and fewer with reports from the students with ID, usually engaging only teachers or parents as sources for information. The current study aims to understand how support and disciplinary structure affected Brazilian students with ID academic adjustment, using their self-reports. The main hypothesis was that student’s perception of support and disciplinary structure would be positively associated to academic adjustment reported by teachers. A total of 110 ID students and 27 teachers participated in the study from 4 special schools in the city of Curitiba, in Southern Brazil. The students were between 12 to 63 old (mean=10.33; median=19.0; sd=.60), and 62.7% of the participants were male. Measures were obtained through a self-report questionnaire including sociodemographic data and measures of peer victimization (α=.75), school support (α=.83) and disciplinary structure (α=.60). The instruments were adapted to the population with ID. Teachers provided information about the academic adjustment of students. Data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). Model building began by first creating latent constructs of academic adjustment (4 items reporting teacher’s perception) support (8 items of student’s perception) and disciplinary structure (3 items of student’s perception). SEM revealed that student’s perceptions of school support was a positive predictor for teacher’s report of students’ academic adjustment, but no relations were found between academic adjustment and disciplinary structure (Figure 1). This is, student’s perception of school support seem to be particularly relevant for students with intellectual disability. The model was a good fit to the data (χ2(87)=117.58, p>.05, CFI=.90, RMSEA=.05, SRMR=.07). The results indicate that the students report of support was linked to their teacher’s assessment of academic adjustment, while the school’s disciplinary structure was not associated to this outcome. Discussion acknowledges limitations of the study, and warrants potential avenues for future research. These findings emphasize the importance of promoting supportive interactions within the school environment.

Authors

• HELLEN TSURUDA AMARAL, Universidade Federal do Paraná
  Presenting Author

• Josafa Da Cunha, Universidade Federal do Paraná
  Non-Presenting Author

• Iasmin Zanchi Boueri, Universidade Federal do Paraná
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jonathan Santo, University of Nebraska Omaha
  Non-Presenting Author