Work

Developments in Children's Evaluations of and Reasoning About Disability-Related Accommodations

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Children with disabilities often receive accommodations, but teachers rarely explain them to typically-developing (TD) classmates. How do TD students reason about these accommodations and evaluate their fairness? Five-, seven-, and nine-year-olds from the United States (N = 122; 50% female; 87.7% white; data collected April 2022 - September 2023) heard stories where a child character with a cognitive or physical disability engaged with a cognitive or physical accommodation. Participants explained why the child engaged in the accommodation and evaluated the accommodation's fairness. Nine-year-olds judged accommodations to be significantly fairer than 5-year-olds. In their explanations, the oldest children mentioned characters' needs significantly more, whereas the youngest children mentioned characters' motives significantly more. Mentioning characters' needs predicted evaluating accommodations as fairer, and mentioning characters' motives predicted evaluating accommodations as less fair.

Source: Child Development

DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14255

Authors: Nicolette Granata, Chyna Bacchus, Melanie Leguizamon, Jonathan D Lane

Institution: Vanderbilt University

Language: English

Topic: Child and Animal Learning Development

Subfield: Developmental and Educational Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Reduced inequalities, Quality education

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $4,320