The Educational Contents and Preparing Educable Mentally Retarded Children on Independent Life Skills from Parents’ and Teachers’ Viewpoint

The purpose of this research was that how much the provided educational contents can prepare educable mentally retarded (EMR) for independent living? Shinohara Yoshinori in international special education conference (ISEC 2000) presented that “The educational contents of ‘Activities for Living a Life of Independence’ are composed of following five domains instructions:1)Maintaining good health2)Tranquillizing3) Comprehending outer world 4) Moving kinetically 5) Communicating” which theoretically is the fundamental of the research in considering contents of independent life skills. A questionnaire according to Yoshinori’s perspective was prepared. The content validity of the questionnaire is approved by some experts and reliability of the questionnaire was obtained.92 (alpha coefficient).The 2000 questionnaires were given to parents and teachers of mentally retarded students (statistical population) of schools which were located in east, west, northeast and center of the Tehran. The schools selected based on the qualities of the educational personnel. Because 28 questionnaires were incomplete, we used 172 numbers of them in final analysis of results. The results showed both parents and teachers believe that current educational contents prepare educable mentally retarded children for independency in living (over %70). The research provides some suggests: educational content analysis of EMR students’ books based on the presented perspective, revising of educational contents of the books, application of educational contents adopted from the viewpoint , independent life skills training to EMR students and as well as their teachers.