A behavioral exploration of dependent and independent mildly mentally retarded adolescents and their mothers.
A study was conducted on behavioral differences between dependent and independent mildly mentally retarded adolescents and their mothers. Twelve dependent and 12 independent adolescent-mother pairs separately engaged in a videotaped problem solving task. These videotapes were subjected to a behavioral coding system consisting of five domains, i.e., problem solving, positive verbal, negative verbal, positive non-verbal, and negative non-verbal. Differential profiles were not evident between the two groups for either adolescents or their mothers. However, there were notable differences between a more stringently defined subset of dependent and independent adolescents and between their mothers. The subset of independent adolescents were more verbal and active in problem-solving than the dependent adolescents; the dependent subset exhibited a greater rate of negative non-verbal behavior; and mothers of the independent subset presented more positive non-verbal behaviors than did the mothers of the dependent subset.
D000293:Adolescent; D003858:Dependency, Psychological; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology*; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010551:Personality; D011340:Problem Solving; D011581:Psychological Tests; D014705:Verbal Behavior