Search

The article presents a discourse on coping-succumbing attitudes toward physical and mental disabilities. The concept of coping succumbing was introduced by sociologist B. Wright to describe behavioral reactions toward disability on a positive-negative continuum. The focus of coping behavior was on the adjustable aspects of a disability with the individual realistically appraising his difficulties and endeavoring to arrange his life in accordance with his abilities. In contrast, succumbing behavior was associated with distortion (a focusing on negative situational aspects frequently accompanied by unrealistic appraisals of situations), stress on liability, and an all-pervasive sense of despair. Several parameters of disability were isolated for study. The description of disabilities in psychologically meaningful terms was considered appropriate here rather than the use of medical or diagnostic labels. It was speculated that the layman's interpretation of disabilities is typically associated with readily identifiable stimulus characteristics.

This study was made to determine the relationship between certain physical defects and school achievement of Intermediate School pupils as measured by teachers' marks. The matched pair technique was used and 300 defective pupils were paired with 300 non-defective pupils so that each pair was similar in intelligence, grade location, curriculum, age, sex, occupational status of parent, and nationality of parent. The two groups were similar according to amount of attendance per semester and the number of semesters in attendance at the school where the data were collected. The teachers' marks were converted into honor point averages. Honor point averages in mathematics, English, social science, general science, and health were computed. A total honor point average for the five subjects combined was also calculated. The data were analyzed separately for boys and girls. For the boys, five of the six comparisons showed slight differences in favor of the defective pupils. None of the differences approached statistical significance. For the girls, the six comparisons revealed differences in favor of the non-defective pupils. One difference, involving the total honor point averages, was statistically significant. The outstanding fact brought out by this study is that 11 of the 12 comparisons revealed differences that are so small that they can be due to chance errors due to random sampling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]