Girls with moderate and severe mental retardation: peculiarities of psychosocial behaviour

Straipsnyje nagrinėjamas vidutiniškai ir žymiai protiškai atsilikusių paauglių (mergaičių) ir merginų psichosocialinis elgesys. Įvertintos visos (158) Lietuvos vaikų ir jaunimo pensionatuose gyvenančios paauglės ir merginos, lyginta jų ypatumai, aptarta, kaip jie kinta žmogui bręstant. Nustatyta, kad vidutiniškai protiškai atsilikusių paauglių (mergaičių) ir merginų psichosocialinis elgesys yra socialiai labiau adaptuotas nei žymiai protiškai atsilikusiųjų. Bręstant vidutiniškai protiškai atsilikusių paauglių (mergaičių) ir merginų elgesys tampa priimtinesnis, tuo tarpu žymiai protiškai atsilikusiųjų turi tendenciją blogėti.Psychosocial behaviour problems are common among children with mental retardation. On the one hand, not adaptive psychosocial behaviour adjudicates relationship with surrounders and social adaptation of mentally retarded, on the other hand, problems of psychosocial character arise not only from organic changes of these people, but for the most part it depends on social environment and on the level of formation of social skills. Therefore, education and training programs for mentally retarded children should involve such areas of development, which would help them to adjudicate social behaviour and emotional answer in different situations of every day, for the reason that learning of right social communication and behaviour, acknowledgment, perception and it’s development are necessary elements for person’s self-sufficiency and independence. Although there exists the opinion that adaptive psychosocial behaviour could be learned as academic knowledge, and the problem lacks of analysis of investigated child behaviour in particular situation. Therefore, when program of behaviour correction is prepared, peculiarity of psychosocial behaviour expression should be estimated and analysed together with assessment circumstances of expression and general situation. The aim of our research was to evaluate peculiarity of psychosocial behaviour among girls with moderate and severe mental retardation. For evaluation of psychosocial behaviour of mentally retarded girls, the scale prepared at Glasgow university for psychosocial behaviour evaluation in 1988 was used. Educator evaluated every girl. All 148 girls, living at child and youth boarding - houses in Lithuania were evaluated. Peculiarities of psychosocial behaviour of girls with moderate and severe mental retardation were compared and analysed from the standpoint of their dependence on age. It is determined that psychosocial behaviour of girls with moderate mental retardation is more socially adapted than of girls with severe mental retardation. As girls with moderate mental retardation become older, their psychosocial behaviour becomes more adequate, while psychosocial behaviour of girls with severe mental retardation has tendency to change negatively