A COMPARISON OF SOCIAL SKILLS AND PROBLEM BEHAVIORS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN WITH AND WITHOUT MENTAL DISABILITY

This study has been conducted to examine if there is a significant difference between 4-6year-old children’s social skills and behavior problems with mental disability and normal peers’social skills and behavior problems. Information form prepared in line with this purpose and Social Skills Rating System Preschool-Teachers Form (SSRS-P-TF) were administered to normal90 students and to 60 students with mental disability between 4-6 ages attending preschool andnursery class in the districts of Şişli and Kağıthane in İstanbul. Data were analyzed with the helpof SPSS 15.0 statistical program. Average standard deviation of descriptive statistics were usedin determining children with mental disability and normal children’s social skills and behaviorproblem levels and Mann-Whitney U Test, Kruskall-walls analysis, Discriminant analysis,and tests of Wilks’Lambda and Chi-Square were used in determining the differences betweenchildren with mental disability and normal children’s social skills and behavior problems. Inresearch results it has been found that children with mental disability have low social skills andhave more behavior problems when compared to normally developing children. Also, children’ssocial skills and behavior problems did not differ in significance level in terms of statisticsaccording to sex variable.