Improving Attitudes of Nonretarded Fourth Graders toward People who are Mildly Mentally Retarded: Implications for Mainstreaming

Abstract

The attitudes of sixty nonretarded fourth graders toward people who are mildly mentally retarded were examined. The attitude domains included social distance and integration-segregation. Subjects were randomly assigned to one of three treatments: (a) active story format condition (subjects listened to a taperecorded story about a boy who is mildly mentally retarded and were asked focusing questions before each of the story's five segments); (b) passive story format condition (subjects listened to the same taperecorded story but were not asked interspersing questions throughout the story); and (c) irrelevant (control) story format condition (subjects listened to a taperecorded story about outer space). Two 2 × 3 (story format × sex) factorial analyses of variance were performed, one for the social distance measure and one for the integra- tion-segregation measure. Results indicated that listening to the story about the boy who is mildly mentally retarded led to more favorable attitudes on the social distance measure; however, only students in the active story format condition reported more favorable attitudes on the integration-segregation measure.

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