Original scientific paper
Differences in Parental Assessment of Social Skills Between Adolescent Boys and Girls With Visual Impairment
Ante Bilić Prcić
; Edukacijsko-rehabilitacijski fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Hrvatska
Tina Runjić
; Edukacijsko-rehabilitacijski fakultet, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, Hrvatska
Ingrid Žolgar Jerković
; Pedagoška fakultet, Univerza v Ljubljani,Slovenia
Abstract
The number of children with visual impairment attending regular, mainstream elementary schools in Croatia is constantly rising. Their inclusion in regular schools has two main goals. The first goal is to ensure better conditions for higher quality education; the second goal, just as important as the first, is to enable these children to have better social connections with their peers.
Good social relationships with peers depend mainly on the each student’s social skills developmental level. Learning and acquiring social skills develops through numerous processes, which are mostly supported by observation, imitation, and learning by doing, but the main mediators for social skills learning in childhood are the children’s parents (family) and their peers. Parents are especially important in the process of learning social skills, as they are the first ones who ˝teach˝ their children social skills and continuously and regularly evaluate their children’s socials skills. It is on this foundation that children build as they work on further social influences.
The goal of this research was to explore gender differences in the parental assessment of social skills in adolescent students with visual impairment. The participants were 34 parents of adolescents with visual impairment: 18 parents of boys and 16 parents of girls. A subscale of the instrument Social Skills Rating System - Parent form (Gresham & Elliot, 1990) was used for the assessment of social skills.
The parents rated the social skills of their children in the domain of cooperativeness, assertiveness, responsibility, and self- control. Differences in the field of social skills between boys and girls with visual impairment were found. According to parental assessment, the boys with visual impairment had better social skills than the girls.
Keywords
children/adolescents with visual impairment; gender differences; parents; social skills
Hrčak ID:
150134
URI
Publication date:
28.12.2015.
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