Self-esteem of Visually Disabled Adolescents in Manipur

Self-esteem is an organised collection of beliefs, feelings of one-self which makes the individual aware of continuing identity as a person, it is the central scheme in one’s personality. It refers to an individual’s sense of his or her value or worth or to extend to which a person’s value, approves, appreciates, prizes or like himself or herself. Adolescence is the period during which a younger person develops sense of identity and feeling of self-worth and self-esteem. As adolescence being a stage of tremendous physical, cognitive and effective changes in identity and self-image, visually disabled adolescents faces difficulties on many of basic functioning. They can’t satisfy of many of basic emotional and social needs thus become victims of low self-esteem. The disability condition affects one’s self-esteem and negative self-evaluation. This paper examines the self-esteem of visually disabled adolescents and the impact of age, sex, academic achievement of the adolescents on self-esteem. Random sampling technique was used and 60 samples of age group 12-19 years were collected with the Sorensen “Self-esteem Test 2006” from the disabled institutions/centres situated in Imphal East and Imphal West Districts of Manipur, India. The data collected was analysed by using SPSS (version 25.0). Descriptive statistics such as mean, standard deviation, percentage as well as‘t’-test and correlation have been adopted to measure the results more efficiently and accurately and to test the hypotheses. Findings reported that lower self-esteem of the visually disabled adolescents. There was impact of age, sex, and academic achievement of the adolescents on self-esteem level. Thus, the results could analyse about the impact factors on self-esteem of the visually disabled adolescents. The study suggested that special needs education system should be incorporated in the curriculum so as to enhance the self-esteem, live skills, co-curricular activities suitable for the disability environment. Moreover, the disabled institutions/centres must develop different mechanisms of creating a conducive environment specially designed for the disabled students. As a whole, the institutions should provide facilities to recognise and acceptance of the disabled adolescents in the society