The purpose of the study was to provide basic materials for establishing an effective sex education program and help teachers' instruction of sex education. To achieve this, we tried to understand exactly a level of the sex knowledge and sex attitudes...
The purpose of the study was to provide basic materials for establishing an effective sex education program and help teachers' instruction of sex education. To achieve this, we tried to understand exactly a level of the sex knowledge and sex attitudes of students with mild intellectual disabilities and general students by comparing the sex knowledge and sex attitudes of students with mild intellectual disabilities.
The subject of this study were 258 middle and high school students with mild intellectual disabilities attending special class in the city of Changwon, Jinju, and Gimhae who could read and write and communicate basically. And the other subject of this study were 316 students without disabilities attending U middle school, S middle school, J high school, C girl's high school, N high school in the city of Changwon. We investigated differences of a cognitive level according to the area of sex education(body structure, change, understanding of relationship, sex culture, and sex ethic) and variable(sex, school grade, frequency of sex education). In addition we analyzed that differences were shown at a cognition level according to the different sex knowledge and sex attitudes of mild intellectual disabled students and general students. To find out differences, inventory was used in this study and data collected were verified by scheffe test such as independent samples t-test, paired samples t-test, F-test, and post-test.
The results of this study are as follows:
First, in the area of the sex knowledge whole and sex education, general students knew much of the sex knowledge than students with mild intellectual disabilities. In mild intellectual disabled students and general students both, female students recognized the sex knowledge higher than male students and high school students were aware of the sex knowledge higher than middle school students. In normal students, the more sex education was conducted, the higher the cognitive level in the sex knowledge was acquired, however, in mild intellectual disabled students, a significant result was not indicated according to frequency of sex education. Therefore students with mild intellectual disabilities acquire knowledge at the low speed so they need to be educated continuously and repeatedly.
Second, in the area of the sex attitude whole and sex education, general students had positive attitude toward sex more than students with mild intellectual disabilities. In mild intellectual disabled students and general students both, female students had positive attitude toward sex more than male students. In normal students, high school students recognized the sex attitude higher than middle school students, however, in mild intellectual disabled students, middle school students were aware of the sex attitude higher than high school students. As the result of analyzing the cognitive difference of sex attitude according to frequency of sex education, a significant difference were not appeared in mild intellectual disabled students and general students both. Therefore the sex attitude is not developed in a short time so the continuously repeated sex education should be performed frequently.
Third, general students had a lower level in the sex attitude than the sex knowledge, however, students with mild intellectual disabilities had a higher level in sex attitude than the sex knowledge. It was presented that students with mild intellectual disabilities had a higher degree of consistency between the sex knowledge and sex attitude than general students. Therefore it is suggested that although students with mild intellectual disabilities couldn't acquire the sex knowledge easily they might improve their sex attitudes through learning knowledge repeatedly.