Behaviour problems of children from care homes and special schools

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamos normalaus intelekto vaikų globos namų ir specialiųjų mokyklų (sutrikusio intelekto vaikams) auklėtinių elgesio problemos, pateikta šių dviejų grupių tiriamųjų emocinių nukrypimų, asocialaus elgesio bei mokyklinės dezadaptacijos kiekybinė bei kokybinė lyginamoji analizė. Tyrimo duomenys buvo renkami 24-iose Lietuvos vaikų bendrojo ir specialiojo ugdymo ir globos įstaigose. Nustatyti būdingiausi tiriamųjų grupių elgesio ir emociniai nukrypimai, tendencijos ir skirtumai. Tyrimo duomenys leidžia teigti, kad panašios ugdymo sąlygos lemia analogiškas vaikų elgesio problemasThe paper presents and analyzes data on the behaviour peculiarities, similarities and differences of students from 24 special schools and Care Homes in Lithuania. Most children with or without mental disability in institutional care have mild emotional and behaviour difficulties. However, slight emotional deviations, anti-social behaviour and school adjustment problems are more characteristic of the special school students. The inmates of Care Homes without mental disability are characterized by more expressed and qualitatively more numerous emotional and behaviour deviations, school adjustment problems of a medium degree are especially frequent. School adjustment problems and loss of motivation for learning directly correlate with various emotional difficulties: rudeness, aggressiveness, conflicts with peers and teachers. The data analysis of the comparative research shows that in most cases the inmates of both Care Homes and Special schools exhibit similar qualitative and quantitative behaviour difficulties. A possible hypothesis is that institutional environment causes similar behaviour patterns in care institutions of various types. Mild emotional problems, associated with both organic peculiarities of nervous system, emotional instability and the stronger feeling of emotional insecurity are more characteristic to the special school students. Emotional and behaviour difficulties could have been provoked by the anti-social environment of most children under investigation, by poverty, discordance in the relationship between the family members, loss of parents and the negative emotions associated with this. Teenagers, demonstrating behaviour characteristic of mild or deep disregard to social norms, such as swearing, lying, use of toxic materials, stealing, and communication with anti-social persons, constituted slightly more than one third in both groups under investigation. They are maladjusted to school, not accepted by their peers and teachers and have to be ascribed to the risk group. They cause worry and may be expected to experience more serious deviations in the future, such as delinquency. We still lack teachers, who have been professionally trained to solve problems of children demonstrating antisocial behaviou