Mentally retarded children have many unsocial or antisocial behaviors such as aggressive, immature, withdrawing, schizophrenic, or seizure behavior. It's necessary to correct those behaviors as soon as possible to help them increase their social adapt...
Mentally retarded children have many unsocial or antisocial behaviors such as aggressive, immature, withdrawing, schizophrenic, or seizure behavior. It's necessary to correct those behaviors as soon as possible to help them increase their social adaptability. Those problematic, visible behaviors can have negative impacts on their growth and even play against their social adaptation and participation. One of the most ideal solutions to their maladaptive behavior is to help them reveal their inner conflicts voluntarily by exposing them to the outside world in a natural way and provide them with a chance to do cooperation play with peers. This study focused on three plays including playing house, clay play, and instrument playing and investigated the effects of those cooperation plays on the reduction of maladaptive behaviors of mentally retarded children.
The specific research goals were as follows: first, it is to examine the effects of cooperation play on thumb sucking of mentally retarded children. Second, it is to examine the effects of cooperation play on throwing toys of mentally retarded children.
Three children showing the two maladaptive behaviors of thumb sucking and throwing toys were selected for the study. Using the multiple baseline design among them, the investigator applied the intervention of the plays to them. Total 25 play sessions were given for five weeks, which was followed by three sessions of retention intervention whose interval was four days. Frequency was recorded to measure the behaviors of thumb sucking and throwing toys. The observation of the target behaviors was done during the lunch hour when the children were the freest in the day care center. The data were analyzed by drawing a distribution graph of the behavior frequency, which was designed to see the general changes to the behaviors of the three children during the experiment.
As a result, their thumb sucking and throwing toys decreased during the experiment compared to the baseline. The reduction effect remained during the retention period. The results were summarized as follows according to the goals: first, the cooperation play was effective in reducing the thumb sucking behavior of the subject children. Second, the cooperation play was effective in reducing the throwing toys behavior of the subject children.
Based on the results, in future study they need to expand the scope of the subjects to apply play activities to and investigate if mentally retarded children's adaptive behavior will increase in addition to their maladaptive behavior. Play activities should also be applied to many different situations, and more diverse play activities programs should be developed.