TEACHERS’ KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE TOWARDS ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER CHILDREN INPRESCHOOLS IN OWODE LOCAL GOVERNMENT, OGUN STATE

Abstract

There is virtually no classroom where Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) children are not found. This implies that the issue of teachers’ knowledge and attitude in ensuring that all children in their care achieve maximally becomes highly imperative. Despite this, few studies exist on the issues of teachers’ knowledge and attitude towards ADHD children with huge empirical gap left uncovered. This premised the reason this study examined teachers’ knowledge and attitude towards ADHD children in Owode Local Government Area of Ogun State, Nigeria. Descriptive design was used for the study. One hundred and twenty (120) preprimary schools’ teachers were sampled out of the one thousand eight hundred and seventy three (1,873) for this study using simple random sampling technique. One research instrument titled “Teachers’ Knowledge Test and Attitude to ADHD Children (TKTAAC) was used to collect data for the study. Content and face validity of the instrument were established by research experts. Thereafter, 20 copies of each of the instruments were subjected to reliability test through Cronbach’s alpha technique and Kuder-Richardson 20 formula which yielded reliability coefficient and index of (0.83 and 0.77) respectively. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of frequency counts, percentage, mean and standard deviations. The findings revealed as follows: the level of teachers’ knowledge of ADHD children in preschools is low and the attitude of teachers towards ADHD children in preschools is negative. Hence, among the recommendations made was that training programmes, seminars or workshops should be organised by experts in the field of special education and early childhood education to train teachers on the importance of children with special needs particularly ADHD children identification and management strategies.