The Effectiveness of Education for Children with Intellectual Disabilities on reducing the burden of parental care

 Although the pressure of care has an adverse effect on mental health of parents with children with intellectual disabilities, educational training for these children can be helpful by creating independence for these children. Accordingly, the present study is conducted by determining the effectiveness of educational training for children with intellectual disabilities on reducing the burden of care for their parents.

The current research was conducted as a semi-experimental study with pre-test and post-test and a control group. The statistical population consisted of all the children under 14 withintellectual disabilities in Pakdasht city in 2021; 30 of them were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups (15 people in each group). The experimental group underwent 20 training sessions, -two sessions a week for 5 hours, but the control group did not receive any training. Zarit Burden Interview was completed by their parents. Then, the obtained data was analyzed by SPSS 18 software and univariate covariance.

Data illustrated the significant difference of the parental burden mean scores between the experimental and control groups (F=107/535, P<0/01); so, it can be concluded that educational training for children with educable intellectual disabilities significantly impacts caregiving-induced burden.

Educational training for children with educable intellectual disabilities in centers related with welfare organization (private and governmental), can reduce the caregiving-induced burden and its possible devastating consequences.