engleski

Self-esteem of adolescent with mild intellectual disabilities

The aim of this paper is to examine global self-esteem of adolescent with mild intellectual disabilities and to identify variables which may have significant impact on it. Self-esteem is a widely used concept both in popular language and in psychology. It refers to an individual's sense of his or her value or worth, or the extent to which a person values, approves of, appreciates, prizes, or likes him or herself. The most broad and frequently cited definition of self-esteem within psychology is Rosenberg's (1965), who described it as a favourable or unfavourable attitude toward the self. Global self-esteem or trait self-esteem is considered stable across time and situations. As self-esteem depend on numerous factors and does not reflect only a simple one's self-evaluation but rather represents result of response to individuals within different settings and interactions with another’s therefore adolescents with intellectual disabilities could be adversely affected by many aggravating circumstances which potentially leads to low self- esteem. Consequently, they might have increased and serious psychological problems which could affect their mental health. Research involved 140 adolescents, boys and girls with mild intellectual disabilities in 1st and 3rd grade of Special Secondary School in Zagreb which qualify their students for auxiliary workers. The Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory has been applied. In addition, students filled out questionnaire about general personal data. The purpose of this research is to identify self assessed level of global self-esteem of adolescent with mild intellectual disabilities and possible correlation with several variable such as: age, gender, primary school setting (inclusive or not), school accomplishing, accommodation. The use of measures of the self- esteem as they relate to disability has not previously received careful scrutiny in our national literature and the implications of their use as well as their disadvantages will be discussed. But, it should not be assumed that the presence of an intellectual disability by itself is an overriding factor in determining the psychological development of those adolescents. Results have shown other factors which could be related to level of their self-esteem.

Self-esteem ; adolescent ; intellectual disabilities

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