Assessment of Self-Concept among Children with Special Needs

Abstract

The self is one’s inner world. It results from evolutional interaction with others, becoming the consistent personal perception of “I” and “Me”. The self-concept really is the individual’s anticipation of his general acceptance or rejection in a given situation; as the self concept is formulated, it tends to shape to new experience and to an established pattern. A handicapped child may be defined as one who suffers from any continuing disability of body, intellect or personality which is likely to interfere with his normal growth and development or capacity to learn. Self-concept means the totality of attitudes, judgment and values of an individual relating to his behavior, abilities and qualities. This self-concept is the evaluation of the self and develops in relation to an individual’s creative behavior. During early life the child’s self evaluation is heavily dependent on the ways in which others accept him, specially his parents and other family members. For the purpose of the study a total of 96 children were selected. 32 each from the visually challenged, hearing impaired and Orthopaedically challenged. Within each group of 32 children, 8 boys and 8 girls (16) from 11-12 years age group and 8 boys and 8 girls (16) from 13-14 years age group were selected. Each child’s self-concept was assessed by using the Tennesse self-concept scale modified and cross validated by Vasundhara Devi (1985). This scale consists of 80 items distributed over eight dimensions to measure the overall level of self-concept. Each dimension consists of 10 items. In visually challenged children boys of 11-12 years recorded highest score for “family-self” and “behaviour and self-satisfaction” (mean score = 26.8 each). In girls of 11-12 years the top score was for “physical-self” (mean score=34.6). Hearing impaired boys of both age-groups recorded highest score “physical-self” (28.1). In contrast in hearing impaired girls “social-self” registered the best mean score (27 and 26.9) in the two age-groups. Orthopeadically challenged boys of both age-groups scored highest for ‘social-self’ (24.9). Compared to boys in Orthopaedically challenged girls “Physical-self” and “social-self” shared the top spot in scores (mean score=26.2 each) in 11-12 years group. In 13-14 age-group of girls “Physical- self” scored highest (mean score=24) .Irrespective of type of disability gender or age-groups, compared to other dimensions of self-concept moral-self and ethical-self recorded the least scores.