Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

Objectives: A review of previous research shows that children with intellectual disability experience various behavioral- emotional problems. Behavioral- emotional problems may lead to social isolation and exclusion from participation in social activity in children with intellectual disability. The role of first experiences of Children with their caregivers, especially their mothers, are very important in the formation and evolution of mental structures such as excitement, personality and behavior. One of the efficiency variables in the relationship between children and their caregivers, especially their mothers; is empathy. There are two-way relationship Between Children’s behavioral-emotional problems and Their Mothers Empathy. This means that children's behavioral- emotional problems reduce Mothers Empathy, and the other hand deficits in Mothers Empathy cause behavioral- emotional problems in children. Therefor the purpose of the present study was to the Prediction of behavioral/emotional problems in students with intellectual disability based on their mother’s empathy.

Methods: current study is a descriptive and correlational research. The statistical population of the study consist of all of students with intellectual disability attending special schools in Shiraz city during academic year 2014-2015. The sample consisted of 120 students (55 female and 65 male) students with an intellectual disability, who were selected using multi-stage cluster sampling. Behavioral/emotional problems questioners of Enfeld and Tonge (2002) and basic empathy scale of jolliffe-farrington (2006) were used in this studying. Basic empathy scale complete by mothers of student with intellectual disability and behavioral/emotional problems questioners completed by teacher of students with intellectual disability. The statistical methods of Pearson correlation and multi regression analysis were applied to analyze the data.

Results: The results of this study showed that in the base of the correlation matrix, Of the four dimensions of behavioral-emotional problems, there is a significant and negative correlation between empathy mothers with anxiety (r=-0.196, p≤0.05) and social communication disorder (r=-0.188, p≤0.05) ) in students with intellectual disability. But there was no significant relationship between Mothers Empathy and antisocial behavior and autism signs subscales.

To determine the contribution of maternal empathy for the prediction of emotional behavioral problems in students with an intellectual disability was used from Simultaneous multiple regression method. So that mothers empathy was considered as predictive variables and each of the dimensions of behavioral problems was considered as dependent variable. Multivariate regression analysis showed that empathy was predict negatively and significantly anxiety (R²=4.56, F=0.038, p≤0.05) and social communication disorders (R²=4.33, F=0.035, p≤0.05). Also the results of multivariate regression analysis about the role of mothers empathy in predicting of behavioral problems in children with intellectual disability with consideration of gender revealed that Maternal empathy (Beta=-0.287, t=2.377, p≤0.05) significantly predict behavioral problems in males with intellectual disability (R²=0/08, F=5.64, p≤0.05). However empathy mothers (Beta=0.016, t=0.116, p≤0.05) was not predicted behavior problems in girls with intellectual disability (R²=0.001, F=0.01, p≤0.9).

Conclusions: According to the findings of this study that showed mothers empathy is a significant predictor for anxiety and social communication disorders; It can be concluded that if the mothers of children with an intellectual disability are taught to have emphatic behavior with their children; then it can be expected that behavioral problems of their children (both girls and boys) will be reduced.