Social Adjustment and Educable Mentally Retarded Children's Mothers

Mentally retarded children impose an extra stress on their parents especially on their mothers. Coping skills can be used by the parents to relieve the stress and to improve the adaptation.Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the effect of training on the social adaptation of educable mentally-retarded children’s mothers based on Roy adaptation theory. This quasiexperimental study was carried out on 40 mothers whose educable mentally retarded children went to the exceptional school in Aran and Bidgol during2009-2010. Intervention consisted of four twohour sessions, supplemented by a 30 minute conversation between the interviewer and the candidate within 2 weeks. Coping skills program was based on the dimensions of Roy theory. Adaptation questionnaire was completed before and 6 weeks after the completion of intervention by the participants. The mean scores of mothers’ social adaptation had significant difference before and after the training in physiological, selfconcept, dependence/independence, role-playing dimensions and total social adaptation. According to the results of the study, the training based on theRoy theory had a positive effect on the social adaptation of mentally retarded children’s mothers.