Interpretation of Problems of Male Adolescents with Mild Intellectual Disability in Special Schools: A Qualitative Study

Awareness of the problems of students with special needs will help families and special education officials to treat and train these children correctly. The goal of this study was to identify and analyze the problems of male adolescents with mild intellectual disability (MID) in special schools.
This qualitative study was conducted through the phenomenological method. The subjects included 16 male students of 15 to 18 years of age with MID in special schools of Tabriz, Iran, during the educational year of 2012-2013. Data were collected through unstructured interviews within 20 to 70 minutes, and analyzed using the Smith et al. method.
The themes that emerged from the interviews consisted of family damages (broken family and illness in the Family), physical ailments (illness, dysmorphism, and organ failure), abuse of adolescents, psychological trauma (anxiety, feeling of guilt, and poor self-control), fear of the future (concerns about safety in the future and concerns about education and job in the future), studying in a special school, poor learning, and disability in others.
The findings of this study showed that adolescents with MID enrolled in special schools cope with complex problems. Attention to these problems can help families and educational system officials to reduce the suffering of this group of learners.