Effect of psycho-education on cognitive skills developmental problems among mild mentally challenged children’s enrolled at special schools of selected city

Abstract

Introduction: A child's process of changing over time is known as child development. It includes the entire time from conception to the point at which a person becomes a fully developed adult. It's a journey from complete reliance to complete autonomy. Physical development is included in the process of a child's intellectual, linguistic, emotional, and social growth. Even though they are frequently taken into independent consideration, each factor affects the others. For instance, intellectual capacity increases with the physical development of the brain. The most common definitions of intellectual disability, also known as mental retardation, place a strong emphasis on subaverage intellectual functioning (IQ less than 70) and impairments in life skills, including communication, self-care, home living, and social or interpersonal skills, before the age of 18. IQ scores are used to define various severity categories of retardation, ranging from mild to severe. Method and Material: This study utilized pre experimental research study, where one group Pretest & post-test design was used to assess the effect of psycho education on cognitive skills developmental problems in 60 mentally challenged children from special schools, Non probability purposive sampling technique was used. Data was collected using a combination of formal interviews with teachers and caregivers, children's behavior and interactions in their educational and social settings. Standardized developmental assessment techniques were used to evaluate effectiveness of mental teaching on cognitive problems. Results; The study also highlights the effectiveness of mental education on cognitive development. The pre-test mean score of 25.95±4.52 significantly improved in the post-test to 21.48±5.26, with a paired t-test revealing a t-value of 18.8398 and a highly significant p-value of 0.0001. This indicates that mental education interventions have a meaningful impact on the cognitive skills of mentally challenged children. Furthermore, while the analysis of socio-demographic variables and developmental history revealed that most factors showed no significant associations. Conclusion: Overall, these findings underscore the importance of targeted educational interventions and highlight areas for future research to enhance outcomes for mentally challenged children.