Role of Stress and Age in Resilience Among Parents of the Children with Intellectual Disability

Parents of children with intellectual disability face various stressful situations. However, many of them show resilience even in the midst of challenges and are able to meaningfully contribute to the life of the child. In the present study, the factors of stress that hinder resilience are assessed in a sample of 50 parents of intellectually disabled children. Stress scale for parents of mentally challenged (SPMC) developed by Rejitha, Biji, and Jayan was used to measure the stress of the parents. Resilience was measured using the Bharathiar University resilience scale, developed by Annalakshmi. Results showed extra-familial stress as a significant inverse predictor of resilience. Older parents are relatively more resilient when compared to the younger.

Struggles of a Child with ID and Their Family Members

There are many children with intellectual disability (ID) in recent years. The increase in numbers reflects the knowledge regarding the issue, thus creating awareness and increased detection for children for any developmental delay. Consequently, medical services are seeing and treating younger cohorts. Their disability may be mild to moderate, making it difficult even for medical professionals to identify these children. Invariably all parents want to have healthy, intelligent, and capable children who can achieve independence and a successful life. The reality is that parents having children with ID often struggle to understand what is happening with their child, what more how to cope with and help their child. Added to their distress is that even professionals dealing with the children and their family have various ideas and beliefs regarding this issue. Identifying families who are struggling and offering them the appropriate advice is essential as these families need proper guidance and services for their child.

Situation in Special Education: Interaction between Teachers and Children Who Have Intellectual Disability and Who Display Challenging Behaviours

Interactions between staff and individuals with intellectual disability have been shown to influence the development or maintenance of challenging behaviours among the latter. Given the implications of these observations, the present study sought to describe special education teachers’ responses to challenging behaviours displayed by their pupils. Eight teachers and 12 children with intellectual disability who manifested challenging behaviours were observed over the course of 6 months. Teachers completed questionnaires regarding their emotional reactions to, and understanding of, challenging behaviours. They also reported their behavioural and emotional responses to challenging behaviours described in vignettes. The combination of observation and questionnaires provided a more comprehensive understanding of teacher’s attitudes towards challenging behaviours. Results indicated a discrepancy between reported and observed behaviours. Teachers preferred verbal interventions or not responding to challenging behaviours. The analysis of interactions between teachers and their pupils highlighted relationships between emotions, attributions and several behaviours.

Applying Gray Relational Analysis in the Evaluation of the Balance of Children with Intellectual Disability

In addition to intellectual performance, children with intellectual disability also seem to have lower performance than children without intellectual disability in terms of balance. Therefore, they often experience walking instability or fall due to imbalance, causing injuries. With regard to balance training courses provided by medical or special education personnel for children with intellectual disability, although there are subjective observation scales that describe their balance in a qualitative way, there are still few direct measurement methods that can provide personnel with the ability to evaluate the training results of an intervention program. The purpose of this study was to provide a method for evaluating the balance of children with intellectual disability to facilitate a general inspection or evaluation of balance before and after the implementation of various intervention programs that help movement development. In recent years, the force platform system has been widely used in the research of the elderly balance, yet the research on balance assessment tools applied to children is rare. This study used the objective, fast, and accurate characteristics of the force platform system to analyze the key points of the sit-to-stand movement and the movement balance parameters of children with intellectual disability and children without intellectual disability. Using the gray relational analysis (GRA) method, the time factors and weight factors from the average performance of children without intellectual disabilities was used as the analysis data. After analyzing the relevance between each participant and the target, a norm for evaluating the balance of children with intellectual disability was established. Hence, this valuable result can provide researchers, special education teachers, and related professionals with an effective and time-saving evaluation of the balance of children with intellectual disability.

Quality of Life of Mothers of Children with Intellectual Disability in Relation to Mother Empowerment Program

Background: The present study investigated the quality of life of 100 mothers of children with intellectual disability in selected special schools of Kottayam district, Kerala. Materials & methods: A descriptive survey was conducted among 100 mothers of children attending special schools of Kottayam district from February 2020 to September 2020. The Quality of Life was measured by using WHO QOL Malayalam questionnaire, after obtaining Institutional Ethics Committee Approval and after seeking informed consent from the participants. . The purpose of the study was explained, socio demographic data collected by interview and the data recorded. The mothers filled up the instrument and returned back to the investigator. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviations and appropriate parametric test such as independent t test for parametric data. Results: Out of the 100 mothers studied, educational status of the mothers showed that 10 had primary education, 37 had high school education, 32 had higher secondary education and 21 graduates.; occupation of the mothers showed that , 18(18%) had Government job, 20 (20% ) had private job ,15(15%) were self employed and 47 (47%) were not employed. It was found that 95(95%) of children obtained financial assistance and other benefits from local self governing bodies. The Overall quality of life scores of mothers and financial assistance obtained from the local self governing bodies was studied .The overall QOL scores of mothers is influenced by the financial assistance obtained from local self governing bodies.(P=0.01, t= 2.51). The Overall QOL Score ranged from 2 to 130 with a mean of 69.93 and Standard Deviation of 20.13 Results shows that the highest mean value was obtained for Psychological Domain with a standard Deviation of 19.85 , the lowest mean value was obtained for social relationships domain with a mean value of 39.55 and a standard deviation of 26.30.

Physical Status of Primary School Children with Intellectual Disability Living in the City of Krasnoyarsk

Parameters of physical development are known to be informative indicators of health status and adaptation processes, as well as markers of social, hygienic and environmental well-being both in healthy children and those with various pathological conditions. The purpose of this article was to study the characteristics of the physical status of children with intellectual disabilities. Materials and methods. We examined 168 children of primary school age (7–11 years) studying in secondary schools of Krasnoyarsk. The subjects were divided into two groups: the first group included 54 children with intellectual disability (F70, F71 according to ICD-10), the second group included 114 children without intellectual disability. Anthropometric characteristics and level of physical development were studied taking into account regional centile tables. The harmony of physical development was assessed using the Quetelet index. Results. The physical development of children with intellectual disability is characterized by a lag in anthropometric characteristics compared with intellectually healthy children: body length was 133.0 and 137.3 cm (p = 0.048), head circumference 51.0 and 52.5 cm (p = 0.002) respectively. The first group also had a statistically significantly lower percentage of children with harmonious physical development (37 %, p = 0.045) against the background of pronounced disharmony (underweight in 31.5 %, excess body weight in 31.5 % of children) compared to their healthy peers (harmonious development in 55 %, underweight in 16 %, overweight in 29 % of children). Further research into the constitution of children with intellectual disability can form the basis for the development of corrective measures, taking into account the specific typological characteristics of children in this group. For citation: Smirnova O.V., Ovcharenko E.S., Kasparov E.V., Fefelova V.V. Physical Status of Primary School Children with Intellectual Disability Living in the City of Krasnoyarsk. Journal of Medical and Biological Research, 2021, vol. 9, no. 4, pp. 385–393. DOI: 10.37482/2687-1491-Z076