Guidance and Counseling

Having a child with special needs poses many challenges for families. Not only are parents affected, but often times the sibling of the special needs child endures social, psychological, and emotional issues that are not addressed. The purpose of this study was to investigate and determine teacher perceptions and attitudes regarding students in their classroom with a special needs sibling. A 10-question survey was distributed to 32 teachers in a South Washington County elementary school. Questions targeted topics related to types of information teachers wanted or needed when helping the siblings of special needs children, how much teachers knew about the feelings and attitudes of their students who have a special needs sibling, if teachers felt prepared to deal with these student's feelings, and if the teachers were willing to be trained to learn strategies that would help students cope with feelings and attitudes regarding their sibling with special needs. The results suggested that teachers were aware of the students in their classroom iii who had a sibling with special needs, but did not feel these students had any issues that