Social acceptance of EMRs integrated into a nongraded elementary school.

Twenty intermediate and 16 primary grade children were administered sociometric questionnaires to determine their social acceptance of three groups of children: normal children, educable mentally handicapped who were integrated into the academic routine of a nongraded school, and educables who remained segregated in a self-contained class. Results were felt to show that both integrated and segregated educable mentally handicapped were rejected significantly more often than normal children, that younger children are more accepting of others than older children, that boys express more overt rejection than girls, and that integrated educables are rejected more than segregated ones by boys but not by girls. The conclusion was advanced that regardless of intellectual level, the labelling of certain children as retarded may affect the expectations that normal children maintain for them; and that the same behaviors that lead to rejection when exhibited by normals may not result in social rejection when exhibited by children classified as mentally handicapped. (Author/CD)