Social acceptance of children with mental retardation: Testing the contacthypothesis with an Italian sample

The purpose of this study was to explore the acceptance of peers with menta l retardation (MR) in an Italian elementary school hosting a cluster of pup ils with severe and profound MR. A similar school in which most pupils have little regular contact with children with disabilities participated for pu rposes of comparison. To assess social acceptance, we presented photographs of hypothetical children together with vignettes describing the protagonis ts' social behaviour. Respondents indicated how likely they would be to inc lude the hypothetical child in social activities and which of the adjective s on a checklist they would ascribe to the child. Although most of the part icipants responded that they would include the hypothetical child in most s ocial activities, sociometrics revealed that five of the six children with moderate disabilities who were integrated in the regular classes of both sc hools were rejected socially.