Behavioral Disorders in Adolescents with Mild Intellectual Disability

Abstract

AbstractAdolescents with intellectual disabilities, due to deficits in their intellectual functioning, are exposed to even greater risk of developing various forms of behavioral disorders.Goal: to determine the risk of emergence of behavioral disorders in adolescents with mild intellectual disability.Respondents: adolescents (211) with mild intellectual disability, educational staff in special secondary schools (39) and members of the expert team (5).Methods: descriptive method, method of comparative analysisProcedures: survey and semi-structured interviews with the educational staff and expert team.Statistical data processing: Windows Tool R x C for contingency tables analysis and Fisher Exact Test, and as significant were considered the differences with significance level of pResults: with the statistical data processing we came to the conclusion that the school achievements affect the emergence of undesired behavior (pConclusion: we came to the conclusion that different forms of behavioral disorders appear in students and they haven't been sufficiently informed about the possible consequences and they rarely voluntarily initiate conversation in respect of the problem. The behavio- ral disorders in this category of students are conditioned by multiple factors by the type of housing, the duration of the period in a stu- dent home, the school achievements, the age and the sex.Key words: behavioral disorder, adolescence, mild intellectual disability(ProQuest: ... denotes non-US-ASCII text omitted.)IntroductionBehavioral disorders are a problem in society that needs to be paid more attention to. Various forms of deviant behavior are also often encountered in people with intellectual disabilities.Different groups affect the personality of the individual, and this effect can be manifested as a risk factor or protective factor.The risk factors affect the increased likelihood of emergence of deviant forms of behavior, while the protective factors reduce this impact by changing the way the young person reacts in a particular situation. The risk factors and protective factors exist in all social contexts in which social interaction takes place. These social contexts are called domains, and they include family, school, peers and social environment (1).The family represents the primary group in which, beginning from the birth, the foun- dations of the future individual are being shaped and the process of education and socialization takes place. Within the family, the child builds its moral character, the intellectual predispositions, as well as the first characteris- tics of its personality are being developed and a picture is being created about its own values and the values of other people (2). The dysfunctional families are generally poor, single parent families and families with a large number of children. These are usually socially isolated, and the parents have insufficiently developed communication skills and empathy and lower opinion of their own skills (3). The school also represents a very important factor in the development of a person and its socialization in general. If an adolescent has been positively accepted in school, it develops a feeling of security and it has a greater level of academic achievements; on the contrary the school becomes a source that generates inconveniences. The failure in school increases the risk of leaving school, using illegal substances, development of delinquency and other forms of deviant behavior (4). Socializing with peers is very important for the development of a personality, especially in the period of adolescence. …