Development of Study Habits Inventory for Filipino High School Students

Abstract

Much of the literature on children with disabilities delved into the promotion of inclusionary practices in education in particular, and in society in general. But there are also studies that dealt with the continuing significance of community or home-based instruction for children who cannot go to school because of severe motor and intellectual disability such as cerebral palsy. This paper seeks to add to the growing literature on children with Special Educational Needs (SEN) by presenting a new way of looking at SEN - through the symbolic interactionist lens of Herbert Blumer. Using a case study approach of five purposively sampled children with mild to profound cerebral palsy, descriptive statistics gathered through the Portage questionnaires showed a remarkable improvement on three domains of the special children’s skills - socialization, self-help and communication skills. The improvements in these three domains are indicative of successful symbolic interaction between the parents and the children. Two domains (motor skills and cognitive skills), however, continued to lag behind. The researchers recommend continuous symbolic interaction between the parents and the children in the three domains for these may possibly improve the performance of the children in the two other lagging domains.