The Effectiveness of Cognitive-Behavioral Training in Decreasing the Punitive Behavior of Mothers of Students with Intellectual Disability

Having a child with disability or disease in the family causes a great deal of stress for parents, especially for mothers, because they may experience more stress, feeling of guilt, and fatigue compared to other parents. The present study aimed at investigating the effectiveness of cognitive-behavioral training on decreasing the punitive behavior in the mothers of students with intellectual disability.

This research was an experimental study with control group pretest-posttest design. The study population included the mothers of all primary school students with intellectual disability in Shadgan city in the academic year of 2014-2015 (i.e. 90 mothers in total). Based on inclusion and exclusion criteria, 20 mothers were selected as the sample and then randomly placed into the experimental or control group. Sessions of cognitive-behavioral training was conducted for the experimental group, while no training was done for the control group. Data were collected by Punishment Questionnaire (Malekpour, 1997) and clinical interview. Analysis of covariance was used to analyze the data.  

Results of data analysis showed that cognitive-behavioral training significantly decreased the punitive behavior in the mothers of students with intellectual disability, in such a way that mothers in the experimental group showed significantly less punitive behavior than mothers in the control group at the posttest phase (P=0.001, F=539.494).

Based on the results of the present study, cognitive-behavioral training can be used as an accepted method to solve the psychological problems of parents and to reduce the punitive behavior in the mothers of students with intellectual disability.