An Investigation of Color Preferences of Students with Special Needs

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the primary and secondary color preferences of students with special needs as well as their color preference for an object regarding their disability types, school levels, and gender. The study employed a survey research design with quantitative methodology. It was conducted with the participation of 549 students with Intellectual Disability, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Down Syndrome and Learning Disability. The researchers collected the data by using a car visual together with the geometric shapes used by Ece and Çelik (2009). The collected data were entered into the Excel program, and the frequency and percentage values were obtained. The results revealed that according to their school level, students’ primary and secondary color preference changed. When the geometric shape was changed, students’ color preferences changed, accordingly. With respect to their disability types, students preferred red as the primary color and blue as the secondary color, and they chose blue for the car visual. It was found that while primary and secondary color preferences of male and female students differed but they preferred blue for the car visual.