Environmental Stressors Essay

The objective of the authors was to identify the psychosocial and environmental factors which young people who receive special education are associated with. The authors conducted a research in Public schools located in Minnesota with the aim of testing the psychosocial and environmental factors between people who have attended special education and those who have not. The total number of adolescents who participated in the research was 121848. The findings revealed that the adolescents who had attended special education experienced higher levels of psychosocial and environmental problems compared to adolescents who had not. This paper aims at analyzing the article â€Å"Environmental stressors and emotional status of adolescents who have been in special eduction classes† by Iris Wagman and Michael Resnick. Introduction. There has been an increase in the number of young people who receive special education, in recent days. This has been attributed to the increase in cases of physical and mental health disability. In the article being analyzed, the authors begin by giving statistics on the number of children who receive special education. They put this figure at ten percent of all children aged between six and seventeen, with another 750000 children being at risk of developing similar disabilities. According to Borowsky and Resnick (1998), bbetween 1976 and 1994, the number of adolescents who receive special education has risen from 3. 7 million to 5. 4 million. Funding for this education has also increased to $2. 32 billion from $373 million in a similar period. The high number of children who suffer from these disorders necessitates the need to improve the welfare of disabled people. Literature review. The authors intend to investigate the difference in psychosocial and environmental factors experienced by adolescents who attend special schools in comparison to those who do not. As has been stated, this was necessitated by the large number of children who experience developmental disability. The increase in the number of students who attend special schools followed the passage of the Handicapped Children Act in 1975, which empowered the disabled children to access appropriate and free education. However, there is limited information on the outcome of special education on these students. This is due to the reason that most surveys that have been carried out in the past have ignored them. Most researches which have been carried out have focused on the welfare of young adults who have received special education. These studies have proved that most of them acquire employment after finishing high school and other training programs. Further studies of children with learning disorders have revealed that there is an association between child neglect and abuse, and learning impairment. However, the extent to which psychosocial and environmental factors which young people who receive special education experience has not been conclusively researched. This is the major reason why the researchers carried out the research on the subject. Methods and procedures. In obtaining the data, all public schools in Minnesota participated, with the exception of one school. A questionnaire was given to 131000 students in public schools in grade six, nine and twelve. About 3% of the surveys had questionable accuracy and were thus excluded. According to Borowsky and Resnick (1998), the questionnaire had a completion time of about an hour, and was designed at the reading level of fifth graders. The questionnaire was given with parental consent, and the students were also allowed to ignore any questions they did not wish to answer. This is commendable, since flexibility enabled the students to be comfortable with the questionnaire. This survey is carried out after every three years, which is consistent and enables results to be comparable. However, the authors do not describe the weaknesses of the use of questionnaires as a source of data collection. According to Kothari (2005), qquestionnaires have many disadvantages and some of them include the fact that the questions are standardized, which presents the risk of misinterpretation by the respondent. Questionnaires do not also present the possibility of probing responses, which limits the extent to which a researcher can get an insight on the opinion of the participant. Another limitation of a questionnaire is that some people only present socially desirable behavior when answering them, which may limit the accuracy of questionnaires. Finally, open ended questions can generate long responses, and this may present difficulties in processing the data. These weaknesses should have been disclosed to people who will rely on this information for decision making. Results and data analysis. The results revealed that 14. 9% of female and 20. 8% of males had attended special education classes. The students who had attended these special classes had higher chances of performing poorly in academics, as compared to the students who had not attended these classes. Boys who had attended special education classes were four times more likely to have difficulties in reading, compared to those who had not attended these classes. On the other hand, girls who had attended special education classes were six times more likely to have difficulties in reading, compared to those who had not attended these classes. Boys who had attended special education classes were three times more likely to have below average grades, compared to those who had not attended these classes. On the other hand, girls who had attended special education classes were also three times more likely to have below average grades, compared to those who had not attended these classes. The students who attended special education classes reported higher instances of not living with their adoptive or biological parents. In the case for boys, 43. 9% of special education students and 31. 8% of children who did not attend special classes reported not living with their adoptive or biological parents respectively. On the other hand, in the case for girls, 42. 4% special education students and 30. 2% of children who did not attend special classes reported not living with their adoptive or biological parents respectively. In terms of family violence, more than one and a half times as many boys and girls who had attended special education school, experienced family violence, compared to those who did not attend these schools. However of the students who experienced abuse, girls outnumbered boys by three times. The levels of emotional status varied between sixth, ninth and twelve graders. These findings reveal that the students who attend special schools experience higher proportions of non traditional and single parent households, compared to those who did not attend these schools. The findings also revealed that the students who attend special schools experience higher proportions of having family members with drug or alcohol problems. They suffered from poor emotional health and sexual abuse. However, female students suffered more than their male peers regarding sexual abuse. These findings are consisted with others which have been done in the past, which reveal that children of parents who either abuse alcohol or experience family violence, are likely to perform poorly as compared to those of families which do not experience these problems. The findings are particularly useful for groups which advocate for the rights of children or disabled people, since they expose the problems which such children experience. Summary and conclusion The authors have presented the research in an internationally acceptable format, though there have been a few weaknesses. The only weakness in the presentation of the paper is the lack of a clear hypotheses statement. Other weaknesses include the fact that the authors did not reveal the weaknesses of the use of questionnaire. The authors did not also give the weaknesses of the use of secondary sources of data when gathering information. They used academic journals to gather information, yet they did not mention the weaknesses of using them in research. Some weaknesses include the fact that there is no possibility of verifying the information gathered. Another weakness is that if the original journal was biased and the authors rely on it for writing the research, then it is likely that the research will also be biased (Kumar, 2005). These weaknesses should have been mentioned since they are useful for people who will use the research to make decisions. However the research has been comprehensively covered. The use of academic journals reduces the chances of bias since they are written by scholars. The references represent a diversity of sources, a fact which makes the research more comprehensive and valid. This research can be used as a basis for future research. For instance, a future research can be carried out with the aim of finding out the causes of disparity between the levels of girls and boys attending special schools, who have been sexually abused. References Kothari, C. R. (2005). Research Methodology: Techniques & Methods. New York: New Age Publishers. Kumar, R. (2005). Research Methodology: A Step-by-step Guide for Beginners. New York: SAGE. Borowsky, I. W. , Resnick, M. D. (1998). Environmental Stressors and Emotional Status of Adolescents Who Have Been in Special Education Classes. Archpediatrics adolesc Med Journal. Retriev