Socially Competent Behavior of Students With Mild Intellectual Disability in Relation to the Socio-Demographic Characteristics of the Family
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.59519/mper5003Keywords:
social competence, intellectual disability, family characteristicsAbstract
Difficulties in the field of social development represent one of the basic characteristics of the state of intellectual disability. The characteristics of the family in which the child lives stand out as potential factors that can influence social development. The aim of this work is to examine the differences in the level of development of social competence in students with mild intellectual disability (MID) in relation to the socio-demographic characteristics of the family (such as place of residence, family structure, number of children in the family, educational level of mother and father). The sample included 50 respondents with MID, both sexes, calendar age from seven to twelve years (AS = 9.82, SD = 1.36).To collect data, we used a sociodemographic guide and the School Social Behavior Scale, Second Edition (Merrell, 2002). The results showed that no statistically significant difference was observed in terms of the development of social competence among the respondents of our sample in relation to the place of residence (χ² = 0.650, p = 0.723), family structure (χ² = 4.364, p = 0.113), the number of children in the family (χ² = 1.454, p = 0.462), nor in relation to the educational level of the mother (χ² = 4.156, p = 0.245) and father (χ² = 3.794, p = 0.285). Although the obtained results do not indicate statistically significant differences in the socially competent behavior of students with regard to different characteristics of the family, they impose the need for further consideration of this issue on a larger sample of respondents with intellectual disabilities.
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Copyright (c) 2026 Andrijana Bakoč, Slađana Ćalasan, Ivana Zečević, Bojana Vuković, Bojana Mastilo (Author)
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