Determining teachers' knowledge and awareness of students with cluttering

The aim of this thesis study is to examine the knowledge level of teachers at different educational levels (primary, secondary and high school) regarding cluttering, as well as their awareness of the importance of referring students suspected of having cluttering to the right and relevant specialist(s). The research design of this study is the correlational survey model. A total of 90 teachers from different provinces of Türkiye participated in the study. The participants were given the "Questionnaire for Determining Teachers' Knowledge and Awareness of Students with Cluttering" to complete. The data were analyzed in the SPSS program; Mann-Whitney U and One-Way ANOVA tests were applied for differences between groups. In the findings of the study, it was determined that teachers' diagnostic, knowledge, and awareness levels of cluttering did not show a statistically significant difference according to teaching level, gender, service seniority, and training/seminar attendance status (p > 0.5). The majority of teachers (63.3%) indicated that they would initially refer the families of students suspected of having cluttering to speech and language therapists. It was found that especially the secondary school teachers (80%) have the highest rate of referring students with cluttering to speech and language therapists. Significant positive correlations were found between the level of identification of cluttering and the level of knowledge (r = .498; p < .001) and awareness (r = .500; p < .001), as well as between the level of knowledge and the level of awareness (r = .545; p < .001). In the light of these findings, it was concluded that teachers' knowledge and awareness levels about cluttering are insufficient and that the number of trainings, seminars, etc. to be given by speech and language therapists should increase.