A Study on Parental Attitude and Needs of the Parents Having Children with Intellectual Disability

The present study aimed to assess and understand the attitude and needs of the parents having children with intellectual disability. Thirty parents (both father & mother) were including in the sample from general services of National Institute for the mentally handicapped, Secunderabad. The assessment was done by using “A Scale to measure, parental attitude towards mental retardation (Rangswami, 1986) and NIMH-FAMNS (Parents) to measure needs of the parents”. In the present study Data was analyzed by using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS 17.0). Mean, S.D, independent “t” test, ANOVA, and Pearson correlation was calculated. The results of study indicated that Disability in children gives rise to various needs in parents, which may vary according to the nature of disability and parental characteristic one among these characteristics is attitude. Attitude and needs are interrelated; when parental attitude is positive towards their children they express more concern and needs. In present study, parents of children with moderate mental retardation showed high positive attitude than mild and severe. The majority of parents showed medium positive attitudes toward their children with intellectual disability. Further researches are needed to conduct on large sample which will help towards better generalization.