MATH COMPONENT

Introduction-
For my PYPX, I have been focusing on kids with intellectual Impairments. I
decided to do further research on children with Down syndrome in Sri
Lanka. I have found out that many of the DS kids in Sri Lanka are confined
to special schools and rarely have the opportunity to mix with other
children. I have also observed that many of these children have very few
or no opportunities to join after school activities such as sports, music or
art. I believe that if these kids were given the same opportunities as
others, they would benefit enormously and most importantly they will not
feel isolated from society. I believe that if all school children had the
opportunity to mix with children with DS, they will learn to accept, be more
tolerant and therefore feel more comfortable around them.
So for my PYPX, I decide to find out the level of awareness of Down
syndrome amongst school children in Sri Lanka.
For my math component I decided to do a survey on the level of awareness
among school children on Down-syndrome. I chose to do this as Im curious
to see the level of awareness on Down syndrome in grade 5.

The Main idea of this survey is to find out the level of awareness of D.S
(Down-syndrome) among school children. My sample is the Student in grade
5 at the Oversees School of Colombo.
My Hypothesis is,
Due to lack of awareness of Down-syndrome, children are most likely to
stay away and not interact with children with Down-syndrome.
Step 1- I want to find out the level of awareness of Down-syndrome among
school children.
Step 2- I would like to find out if the main reason for the discrimination of
children with Down-syndrome, and not being properly accepted in society is
due to lack of awareness.
In order to find out I will survey the Grade 5 students in OSC by emailing
them a survey that they can fill out and return to me.
Step 3-
Expected outcome of research
1: I chose to survey the grade 5 students of OSC, as they are more
reachable, and as I have their school email addresses I can simply email
them the survey.
2: I also chose them because they are more likely to take time and answer
my survey truthfully.
3: As Im surveying both girls and boys Im likely to get an accurate picture
of lack of awareness among students.
Step 4-
Population-School children in Colombo
Sample-Students from OSC
Random sample-Grade 5 students at OSC
Step 6-
I will ask these questions from my random sample



1. Do you know what Down syndrome is?
Yes No Maybe
2. Do you have any social interactions with children with Downs
syndrome, if yes how often?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
_____________________________________
3. Do you dislike children with Down syndrome?
Yes No Maybe
Why or why not?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
______________________________________

4. Do you think they are different from us?
Yes No Maybe
5. Why?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
______________________________________
6. Do you think that children with Down syndrome enjoy sports?
Yes No Maybe
Why do you think so?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
______________________________________
7. Do you think that children with Down syndrome have feelings just like
us?
Yes No Maybe
Why do you think so?
___________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________
______________________________________

8. Do you feel comfortable with interacting/playing with children with
Down syndrome?
Yes No Maybe

9. Do you think you are more likely to get Down syndrome if you are
poor?

Yes No Maybe




0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
20
Step 6- Results from the survey
Know
what
DS
is
Dont
know
what
DS
is
Have
interaction
with DS
kids
Dont have
interaction
with DS
kids
Dislike
DS
kids
Likes
DS
kids
Thinks
that DS
kids are
different
Dont
think
that DS
kids are
different
Comfortable
interacting
with DS
kids
Uncomfor-
tabel with
DS kids
12 8 4 16 3 17 9 11 18 2


0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
16
18
Survey results
Know what D.S is Don't Know what D.S is
Have Interraction with D.S kids Don't have interraction with D.S kids
Dislike D.S kids Likes D.S kids
Think that D.S kids are different from us Don't think that D.S kids are different from us
Thinks that D.S kids have feeling like us Don't think that D.S Kids have feelings
Cofertable while interacting with kids that have D.S not comfortable while interactiong with children with D.S




60%
40%
aware of DS is Not aware of what DS is
30%
70%
Comfortable
ineracting
un comfortable
Step 7-
I will find out the percentage and fraction of children that knew and didnt
know about each question, as it will make it easier to analyse the data
Question 1-
1-Percentage that knew what Down-syndrome is
12 x 100
20
12/20=0.6
0.6 x 100=60%

2-percentage that didnt know what Down-syndrome is

8 x 100
20
8/20=0.4
0.4 x 100=40%
Question 2-
The percentage of children that felt uncomfortable interacting with DS
kids
14 x 100
20
14/20=0.7
0.7 x 100=70%

The percentage of children that felt comfortable interacting with DS kids
6 x 100
20
6/20=0.3
45%
55%
Different from
us
Not different
0.3 x 100=30%
Question 3-
The percentage of children that have interaction with DS kids
2 x 100
20
2/20=0.1
0.1x100= 10%
The percentage of children that have no interaction with DS kids
18 x 100
20
18/20=0.9
0.9 x 100= 90%
Question 4-
The percentage of children that thought that Down-syndrome kids are
different form us
9 x 100
20
9/20=0.45
0.45 x 100= 45%
The percentage of children that didnt think that Down-syndrome kids are
different from us
11 x 100
20
11/20=0.55
0.55 x 100= 55%
Observation
During my research I observed that:
Very few students knew or had any interaction with D.S kids.
Kids with D.S are confined to special schools.
D.S kids have very little interaction with normal kids.
D.S kids dont have many opportunities to join extracurricular
activities such as, sports, music, art etc.
Normal children are very reluctant to make friends and interact with
D.S kids
Aanalysis
I order to get a better understanding of the survey results, I turned them
into percentages.
Question 1-
60% of grade 5 students said that they knew what D.S is.
40% of grade 5 students said that they didnt know what D.S is.
Question 2-
30% of grade 5 students felt comfortable while interacting with D.S kids.
70% of grade 5 students felt uncomfortable while interacting with D.S
kids.
Question 3-
10% of grade 5 students have interaction with D.S kids.
90% of grade 5 students dont have interaction with D.S kids.
Question 4-
45% of grade 5 students think that D.S kids are different from us.
55% of grade 5 students dont think that D.S kids are different from us.




Conclusion
As predicted in my hypothesis, it was found that only a very few
percentage of students had any social interaction with kids with DS. Also it
was found that a majority of students surveyed, felt uncomfortable in
interacting with kids with DS.

This confirms my hypothesis that lack of awareness can create reluctance
to interact with children with Down syndrome. I believe that as children
have very little or no interaction, it makes them uncomfortable or uneasy
around kids with DS. Due to lack of understanding and knowledge children
can assume that kids with DS may be a threat to them or might physically
harm them. They may also think that kids with DS are very different from
them. I believe more opportunities for interaction and awareness can
greatly improve this situation.
A majority of children in my survey said they knew what DS is.
I feel this may be because, grade 5 student at OSC in the past few weeks
have been learning about inequality. Also the fact that we visited many
schools for differently abled children may have given the students at OSC
an understanding of what DS is. If I had surveyed students from another
grade or school, this result may have been different.
From my survey it can be concluded that there is very little interaction
between normal students and students with Down-syndrome, this in turn
may be why they feel uncomfortable with mixing with DS kids. We may be
able to change this by creating more awareness of children with DS and by
creating opportunities for regular children to interact with DS kids.