A dental health education program for the handicapped child in a special education setting
Date
1977
DOI
Authors
Porter, Cynthia A.
Version
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
A review of the literature indicates that very little education has been directed towards meeting the needs of the handicapped child. Through the cooperation and support of Boston University School of Graduate Dentistry and the Joseph P. Kennedy, Jr. Memorial Hospital for Children in Brighton, Massachusetts, plans were developed to establish a comprehensive dental health education program.
This dental health education program was implemented in two very different classrooms. One classroom consisted of boys ages nine to twelve. All of these children suffered from some form of learning disability and to some degree exhibited behavioral and emotional problems. The second classroom consisted of boys and girls ages ten to thirteen. All of these children had varying degrees of learning impairments and motor problems. Education and instruction was provided to three groups in an attempt to motivate participants and assure success of the project. The program involved an in-service education program for the special education teachers and aides in the Day Program at Kennedy Memorial Hospital, and classroom education of the children in, personal oral hygiene. Home care instruction was also provided to parents through small group meetings and informational materials sent home with the children.
During the dental health education program, basic concepts of oral health were taught, with a special emphasis on the development of motor skills. The development of an intellectual consciousness of the subject matter was downplayed throughout the implementation of this program.
It was important that alterations in the design of toothbrushes be made to enable children with various physical limitations to accomplish this goal of independent mouth care. Improvement in the child's dental health habits was contingent upon postive reinforcement, encouragement, and supervision at home.
To assess the effectiveness of the edu ation program a series of three OHI-S screenings were taken to evaluate the students' plaque levels. One was taken at the first lesson, one at the last lesson and one a month after the last lesson. The results indicate that there was a statistically significant difference between pre and post test scores of the screenings at the .05 level. The scores obtained at the last lesson were significantly lower than the results obtained from the first screening indicating that the dental health education program probably had an effect on the child's oral hygiene, meaning that there was a statistically significant reduction in plaque levels. However, the oral hygiene scores one month after the post test indicated a tendency towards a deterioration of oral hygiene scores found at the time of the last education session.
It seems that behavior modification with positive reinforcement, teacher participation and encouragement, constant visual reinforcement, parental involvement, and individual instruction were all motivating factors awards achieving the goal of improved oral hygiene of the children in two classes in the Day Program Kennedy Memorial Hospital.
Description
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Thesis (M.Sc.)--Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry, 1977 (Dental Public Health).
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 24-25).
Thesis (M.Sc.)--Boston University, Henry M. Goldman School of Graduate Dentistry, 1977 (Dental Public Health).
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 24-25).
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This work is protected by copyright. Downloading is restricted to the BU community. If you are the author of this work and would like to make it publicly available, please contact open-help@bu.edu.