Quality of life of young adults with mental retardation

The thesis focuses on quality of life of persons with intellectual disability during the period of young adulthood. In theoretical part I deal with the topics "who is a young adult with intellectual disability" and "what issues does he/she face in this life stage". I engage in contemporary concepts and approaches to quality of life and choose some of them as crucial for my work. The primary focus is given to one of the eight domains of quality of life (according Schalock's concept) - self-determination. Empirical part deals with qualitative study that was carried out in the form of a semistructured interview with people with intellectual disability and that is focused on two major areas. The first area refers to a subjective satisfaction with a fulfilment of person's most important targets, the second area concerns with decision making and autonomy (two indicators of self-determination). The work brings information about notions of the independent (self-managed) life, the work-life and the partnership of persons with intellectual disability. My aim was to notice a subjective sensation and gain deeper insight into the individual experience of the respondents.