Pedagogical Actions and the Level of Social Development of Mildly Mentally Handicapped

Abstract

The present paper, is an attempt to define the relation between certain pedagogical actions used in the boarding houses for mildly mentally handicapped and the level of their development.

A Social Assessment Chart for Studying Educational Programs Carried Out in Boarding Houses For Mildly Mentally Handicapped (IBPWf) was used for two boarding houses different in the method of their educational programs’ realization: Boarding House A earring out the program of general rehabilitation, and Boarding House B earring out the „care” program. Each of the groups was standardized with relation to other variables. The use of PAC-2 facilitated a quantitative description of a number of particular social competences of the mildly mentally handicapped.

An analysis of the significance of the differences in PAC-2 scores for the two groups was the basis of defining the relations between the level of social competence and certain pedagogical actions. The analysis points out to the existence of some relation between the two variables.

Planned and discreetly controlled pedagogical situations which incite greater activity, and bring about the necessity to make decisions and take the responsibility for one’s actions in mildly mentally handicapped result in the mildly mentally handicapped broadening their range of social competence, thus, diminishing the distance between mentally healthy people and mentally handicapped.