The effects of curriculum on preschool children's perceptions of the elderly

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