Effects of awareness interventions on children's attitudes toward peers with a visual impairment

The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of two awareness programs (6-day vs. 1-day programs) on children's attitudes toward peers with a visual impairment. Three hundred and forty-four Spanish physical education students (164 girls and 180 boys) aged 10-15 years, took part in the study. A modified version of the Attitudes Toward Disability Questionnaire (ATDQ) was used, which includes three sub-scales: (i) cognitive perceptions, (ii) emotional perception, and (iii) behavioral readiness to interact with children with disabilities. The questionnaire was filled out during the regular physical education class before and immediately after the awareness activity. The 6-day didactical unit included a lecture on visual impairments and a video describing visual impairments and the game of 5-a-side soccer (first lesson), sensibilization activities toward visual impairment (second and third lessons), training and competitive 5-a-side soccer tasks using blindfolded goggles (fourth and fifth lessons), and a sport show and chat with soccer players with a visual impairment (sixth lesson). The 1-day awareness unit only included the final session of the didactical activity. Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed significant time effects in the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral subscales. Sex also was found to demonstrate significant effects, in which women showed more favorable results than men. A time-by-group intervention effect was only demonstrated in the cognitive sub-scale, and the 6-day didactic intervention was more effective than the 1-day awareness unit.