Analysis of Changes in Awareness and Attitude Toward Hearing-Impaired Students by Experiencing Handicap in College Students

Abstract

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to compare change in the perception of hearing impairment before and after the handicap experience and to qualitatively analyze accepting attitude and change toward the impairment in college students. Methods: Twenty college students were asked to wear personalized earplugs on their ears to experience the handicap of hearing loss for five days. They reported 12-items questionnaire before and after the experience and had also 1:1 individual interview using a structured format with open questions. Results: Although the negative attitude toward the hearing impairment (78.30%) was high enough before the handicap experience, the positive attitude (78.02%) was prominent after the experience. Further, the participants had expressed negative feeling such as guilt and avoidance toward the hearing impairment before the experience, while showing discrepancies between their cognition and behaviors. However, their perception and attitude were changed with positive recognition after the experience. Conclusion: Although it was a short period of the experience, the present results confirmed that the non-disabled students had an internal understanding and distracted negative attitudes toward the hearing impairment. The systematic and detailed handicap experiences might be expected to maintain a positive attitude toward the students with disabilities for a while.