DEVIANT BEHAVIOR IN ADOLESCENTS WITH MILD INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

Abstract

Modern trends of living and social changes which our country goes under, negatively affect the development and behaviour of young people.
Adolescents with intellectual disabilities, as a result of the deficit in their intellectual functioning, are even under greater risk of developing deviant forms of behaviour.
The thesis is presented on 136 pages and the document in its structure includes the following chapters: introduction, theoretical approach to the problem for research and research section consisted of three parts: survey methodology, results and discussion, and conclusion and recommendations. The paper also includes list of used literature and articles in the References chapter.
In the introductory section, the reasons or risk factors for the emergence of various forms of unacceptable forms of behavior in adolescents are listed, including the adolescents with mild intellectual disability.
The notion of deviant behaviour is defined in the theoretical part, providing a record of preventive and risk factors associated with the family, the school environment, groups of peers and social environment, as well as description of various types of deviant behavior, social reaction and preventive measures associated with such behaviour.
The theoretical part also defines the notion of adolescence, several definitions and classifications of intellectual disability and the possible types of educative programmes and upbringing of this category of persons are also explained.
By laying out the methodology, the subject, the purpose and the character of the research objectives, hypotheses, variables, methods, techniques and instruments of research are also defined.
The objective of the research is to collect information regarding the presence of deviant forms of behavior in adolescents with mild intellectual disability.
The main goal of this research is to determine the risk of deviant forms of behavior in adolescents with mild intellectual disability who live in family settings and dormitories, and comparison of deviant behavior in two high schools for special education.
The sample is consisted of adolescents (211) with mild intellectual disability, educational staff from the special schools (39) and professional teams (5).          
The statistical data processing was performed by Windows program R x C for analysis of contingency tables and Fisher Exact test, and a statistically significant difference was considered at the level of p<0.05.
The research was conducted in the Special Education High School “Iskra”-Stip and Special Education High School “Ss. Naum Ohridski”-Skopje, in the period between April and May, 2011.
By analyzing the obtained results, it was concluded that the schools do not have adequate records of deviant behavior among students. The statistical data processing showed that the school success affects the appearance of unwanted behavior (p<0.001). According to the educational staff and the professional team opinions, in 56.8% of the cases, adolescents with mild intellectual disability do not have enough knowledge about the negative consequences of such behavior and 70.45% of them rarely initiate conversation or ask for help voluntarily.  Parents of these students in 86.4% of the cases are generally not interested for cooperation with the schools. The results of the research also show that the deviant forms of behavior in most cases are recorded in older students (p<0.05) who live longer period in the dormitories. The pupils of Roma ethnicity in larger scale (57.1%) manifest deviant forms of behavior.
The findings highlighted the need for active and mutual cooperation of all relevant entities that treat this matter in order to timely register the occurrences of deviant behavior and take measures and actions to encounter these forms of unwanted behavior.