THE EFFECTS OF CURRICULUM ON PRESCHOOL CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THE ELDERLY

Perceptions of the elderly were determined for 42 4- and 5-year-old ch ildren. The Social Attitude Scale of Ageist Prejudice (SASAP) was used to examine how these young children perceived elderly people after be ing exposed to a developmentally appropriate classroom curriculum that focused on the characteristics and positive aspects of the elderly. I n a pretest-posttest design, a decrease in prejudice score was found f or children in the experimental group from pretest to posttest; an inc rease in prejudice score was determined for the control group. Results of this study also indicate that young children are more negative tow ard elderly persons' abilities than toward their social characteristic s and that level of grandparent visitation is unrelated to SASAP score .