School psychologists' perceptions, roles, and training regarding sexual health education for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities

Abstract

Despite research indicating evidence‐based sexual health education results improved student outcomes, students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (I/DD) do not typically receive sexual health education. While school psychologists possess skills that could contribute to sexual health education for students with I/DD, there is no existing research on this topic. To address this, we conducted a survey of school psychologists in a state in the Southeastern United States regarding their attitudes, perceptions of social norm and self‐efficacy, and training and familiarity in regard to sexual health education for students with I/DD. The survey's focus and design were guided by the Reasoned Action Approach. Data collection and analyzes addressed (a) the underlying structure and internal consistency of our survey's scales; (b) school psychologists' level of training, knowledge, and beliefs about implementing sexual health education programs with students with I/DD; and (c) the relationship between school psychologists' previous training, knowledge, and beliefs and their implementation of and advocacy for sexual health education for students with I/DD. Descriptive statistics, principal component analyzes, and multiple regression were used to summarize the data and address the research questions. Data from the multiple regression analysis indicated that a significant amount of the variance in participants' implementation/advocacy scores was explained by attitude, social norms, behavioral control/self‐efficacy, and training/familiarity. Our findings suggest that school psychologists' engagement in implementation of and advocacy for sexual health education for students with I/DD can be influenced by level of training and knowledge and perceived capability and behavioral control.