Adapting Antonak and Harth's Mental Retardation Attitude Inventory for Kuwait's Culture

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to adapt Antonak and Harth's (1994) Mental Retardation Attitudes Inventory for the Kuwaiti culture and to investigate its four‐dimensional structure. The study also aimed at identifying a unidimensional subset of items besides examining the quality of the identified items and the overall inventory. The 34 ‐item adapted inventor y was administered to 56 4 college students. Item analysis indicated that 29 items have had good psychometric characteristics. However, the exploratory factor analysis, cross‐correlations of scale and item scores, and correlations among scales did not support the four‐dimensional structure of the adapted inventory. Further, the sample was split into two random halves. A uni‐dimensional subset of 20 items was identified in one sample by iterative factor analyzing the item data and discarding items with small loadings. The other sample was used to cross‐validate uni‐dimensionality of the identified items. Analysis indicated that scores of the 20‐item inventory have high Cronbach coefficient alpha, and high stability and generalizability coefficients. Partial support for the validity of the scores had been ascertained by comparing the scores of male and female students, and by regressing the inventor y scores on indicators of familiarity with individuals with mental retardation. Findings were discussed with reference to Kuwaiti culture. Over the last two decades, inclusion has internationally become a critical part of the reform efforts to improve the delivery of services to individuals with Mental Retardation (MR). This trend focuses on increasing the opportunities for the placement of these individuals in the same social and educational set tings as individuals without MR. The new arrangements for providing services have created challenges to people without disabilities concerning acceptance, integration, and inclusion of individuals with MR into the mainstream of society (Praisner, 2003). Many researchers (e.g. Priestly, 1998; Yazbeck McVilly & Parmenter, 2004) have convincingly argued that these challenges have their roots in the societal norms and values that concurrently developed throughout the unfolding history of the meaning of MR. As Priestly (1998) noted, although people with differences have existed in all societies, the degree to which they were integrated or excluded varied according to predominant cultural perceptions. Yazbeck, McVilly and Parmenter (2004) suggested that people's attitudes toward individuals with MR are socially constructed and are acquired through experience over time. Individuals with MR are often judged by people based on their disability instead of their whole lives and what they may accomplish and experience during their life (Blatt, 1987). Consequently, People may rely on false generalization and develop negative attitudes towards individuals with MR. Makas, Finnerty‐Fried, Sugafoos, and Reiss (1988) noted that for nondisabled persons, positive attitude toward people with disability is usually conceptualized as be...

Maternal Self-Efficacy of Mothers of Children with Intellectual Developmental Disabilities, Down Syndrome, and Autism in Kuwait

“…Commonly, persons with a disability are regarded as burdensome and shameful, because they are incapable of contributing to traditional social obligations and roles (Kandari and Salih 2008). As long as such traditional beliefs persist, the present study expects that, with lack of family services, Kuwaiti mothers will continue to believe that they cannot deal with the stress at home, talk with friends and family about their child, or ask others for help.…”

High School Students' Contact with and Attitudes towards Persons with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities in Kuwait

“…Also, Pettigrew and Troop (2000) stated that 94% of the 203 studies about contact and attitudes indicated an inverse relationship between face-to-face contact and negative attitudes. Although some Eastern studies that were conducted in China (e.g., Siperstein et al, 2011;Wong, 2008), Kuwait (e.g., Salih & Al-Kandari, 2007;Al-Kandari & Salih, 2008), and Japan (e.g., Horner-Johnson et al, 2002) found a small effect of contact between students with and without IDD in changing students' attitudes towards inclusion, other studies (e.g., Chadsey, 2004;Siperstein et al, 2007) suggested that if students have limited opportunities to interact with a peer with IDD in the educational setting, their attitudes towards inclusion will remain negative.…”

“…For example, studies in Arab societies (e.g., Mohammed, 1995;Rahal, 2005;Saratawey, 1990, conducted in Bahrain, Syria, and Egypt, respectively) focused on attitudes in association with variables, such as type of disabilities (e.g., physical, hearing, intellectual, and vision impairments), television programs, academic performance, nationality, the visibility of disability, educational status, and specialisation. Meanwhile, studies conducted in Kuwait (Al-Kandari & Salih, 2008;Salih & Al-Kandari, 2007) focused on identifying the attitudes of college students towards the integration of people with IDD in mainstream society.…”

“…The questionnaire kits included the demographic profile sheet and the Arabic version of the Mental Retardation Attitude Inventory-Revised (Al-Kandari & Salih, 2008).…”

“…However, Al-Kandari and Salih (2008) further extracted a unidimensional subset of 20 items that presented the global attitude, the scores of which had high Cronbach coefficient alpha (α = 0.89), and high stability (test-retest reliability, 0.87). The authors also found preliminary support for the validity of the 20-item inventory.…”