لمحور : تطوير مجتمعات الدمج دور المعلمين وأسر الطلبة المعاقين في الدمج الشامل في مدارس التعليم العام في دولة الكويت من خلال البرامج الاجتماعية والنفسية والترويحية
Authors: Mohammad Oliemat Enas 
Published: April 2015

There is evident interest in the comprehensive integration issues in light of the need of students with disabilities for services and special programs in order to achieve social integration. There seems to be better awareness to the shortage in the ability of institutions and centers to take in these large numbers, and agreement that this kind of access to integration is considered a basic human right. The acceptance of this concept of integration wasn’t coincidental, it’s rather attributed to changing attitudes towards people with disabilities and realization that integration leads to social justice and benefits students a great deal and prevents several social and economic burdens. Students with disabilities have the full right to access education and to participate in life regardless of gender, age or ability. To help individuals with disabilities achieve their goals, we have to help them integrate in regular mainstream schools because this will help them improve their cognitive abilities. This may take place through providing learning and social environments that are similar to the real society which brings all parties involved together to making this integration process work, including families. Family is the most crucial unit in an individual’s life, especially for one with disabilities. It’s the unit that helps nurturing him and encourages him to build his personality and it’s there where the seeds for better opportunities in society are planted. Families, however, need several supporting programming that encompasses social, psychological, and recreational aspects of their lives. The importance of this research is to examine the need to study the most pressing components that are needed for integration initiative to succeed and to identify area of insufficiency and defects in order to offer potential methods of improvement. This research becomes even more important while more individuals with disabilities head toward integrating in normal schools which calls on certain recommendations and suggestions to present a realistic and achievable suggested model and identify the ways to implement it and the best tools to utilize all the tools in order for the initiative to achieve its goals for the benefit of all.

The paper addresses the issues surrounding the role of school teachers in the Kuwaiti Public School system and the families of individuals with disabilities in the context of the social, psychological and recreational programming. Which leads to other questions:

1- What’s the family’s role in integration? 2- What is the psychological role that families play in integration? 3- What’s the recreational role that families play in integration? 1- What’s the teacher’s role in integration? 2- What is the psychological role that teachers play in integration? 3- What’s the recreational role that teachers play in integration?

A survey was designed and developed by the two researchers while having experts and peers reviewing the process and eventually the survey’s sociometric characteristics were determined; other material such as students’ records and works were also used. The survey was conducted on a sample of 100 students with disabilities in Kuwaiti public schools. The results show that these students had insufficiencies at various levels in their lives which primarily due to the inability of families to provide services to their disable children and failure to fulfill their social, psychological and recreational needs. Such families show little experience in dealing with their disable children especially in situation where the child is the only one in the family with disability or where disabilities occurred due to circumstances other than genetic. This little knowledge by families is reflected through many negative psychological impacts on their disable children which was also manifested through feeling neglected, unwanted, and an outcast. In addition, many families had no knowledge of institutions and centers and schools that offer services to children with disabilities. This essentially meant that integration and interaction were delayed due to the lack of ability among such cases in managing them themselves, learning about responsibilities, knowing certain skills that help them with the process, and lacking self-confidence. This situation repeatedly kept children from being able to adapt to such schools.

Results show that the big role that families play in developing social programs and highlighting it with ordinary people but especially with his direct social surroundings promotes self-confidence and helps in overcoming shyness, fear and encourages him to participate in recreational programs such as sports, cultural/educational, trips, arts, theater and drama. As for the role of teachers in integration, the study shows the positive results of what teachers do with these children through the various activities that they do at school which encompass the fine arts, music, school field trips and picnics, sports, and involvement in national associations and organizations. The study shows the integral relationship between the role of teachers and families and how together they create a positive situation for such children. The two researchers utilized several statistical methods such as Scheffé's method for comparative distances, averages, standard deviations, analysis of variance unilateral, and the Pearson correlation coefficient,