ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEMS AND THE NEEDS OF SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS (EDUCATING) THE INTEGRATION OF PRIMARY SCHOOL EDUCATION ABOUT SEXUALITY (77 - 85)

Abstract

Sexuality Education is defined as a formal teaching process to provide children and young individuals with an understanding of sex as a means of survival in the biological, psychological, and social aspects. Every living human being, including children with learning disabilities, regardless their level of cognitive ability are entitled access to information about sexuality. However there are obstacles in teaching sexuality to this group. There are diversed levels of functionality and categories of students in a classroom that creates many challenges to the teachers. In addition, there is no sexuality education curriculum specifically designed for children with learning disabilities in Malaysia. Therefore this paper will clarify the problems and the needs of teachers in teaching sexuality education. The study approach was to get the information through questionnaires from a panel of experts through the Fuzzy Delphi method. 42 experts from Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health were selected as the respondent. The instrument used was a questionnaire constructed by literature review and interviews on eight experts. Data were analyzed using Fuzzy Delphi method. The Likert scale was converted to Fuzzy scale. The findings revealed that the experts reached consensus for all the items in the questionnaire with the defuzzification value 0.5 and above. The findings revealed that among the problems faced by the teachers was that up till now there are no courses nor trainings on sexuality education specifically for children with learning disabilities in primary schools. The data also indicated that the experts had reached the consensus that teachers need a teaching module on sexuality education specifically designed for children with learning disabilities. The findings therefore suggests that all personnel involved in the field of education for children with learning disabilities should take the initiative to provide sexuality education modules specifically suited for these children.