An Investigation of Empathy Skills of Normal and Mentally Disabled Adolescents and Their Mothers

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An Investigation of Empathy Skills of Normal and Mentally Disabled Adolescents and Their Mothers. The goal of this study is to compare the empathy skills of 105 normally developing adolescents attending schools implementing inclusion programs and 23 moderately and 97 mildly mentally disabled adolescents attending special education or inclusion schools along with those of their mothers. Additionally, the mothers of both groups were to be compared in terms of their empathy scores based on their level of education and household income to see if they differed significantly. The study is designed based on the relational screening model. The findings show that the adolescents’ empathy scale scores differed significantly based on their condition (normal/disabled) and the mothers’ scores differed significantly based on having a disabled adolescent child or not. The empathy skills scores of normally developing adolescents and their mothers were significantly higher than those of mentally disabled adolescents and their mothers. No association was found between the scores of mentally disabled adolescents and their mothers; and also between the normally developing adolescents and their mothers.

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Adolescent , mentally disabled , empathy

Mersin University Journal Of The Faculty Of Education

314

Mersin University Journal Of The Faculty Of Education