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Exploration of the adaptive behavior of severe and profound
mentally-retarded adults
The main purpose of this study is to explroe the discrepancies of the adaptive behavior as demonstrated in severe and profound mentally-retarded adults, respectively living in institutional homes and communal ones. In this study, purposive sampling involves forty-two severe and profound mentally- retarded adults, living in institutional homes over six months and their primary care-givers. In parallel, there are forty-two severe and profound mentally- retarded adults living in communal homes and their primary care-givers. Also, twenty-nine members of the working staff in the institutional homes are asked to help fill out a questionnaire. Instruments of this study include: 1)documents of main family members, 2) a questionnaire of primary care-givers'' child-rearing methods, 3)a questionnaire of how primary care-givers look at those mentally- retarded members, 4) family APGAR index and 5) the statistics of adaptive behavior. The result of this study shows the following things. First,in communal homes, severe and profound mentally- retarded adults have better adaptive behabior than those in institutional homes. These two groups have distunvt differences in their ability to communicate, their family living and their practical knowledge Secondly, primary care-givers in communal homes are more liberal, in their ways of rearing children, than those in institutional homes. Thirdly, about social exclusion ,family burden and human alienation,primary care-givers in institutional homes are more negative than those in communal homes. Finally, an overall analysis makes us know that family APGAR index and educational levels may effectively predict the performance of adaptive behavior of those mentally- retarded adults. Nevertheless, families'' social and economical backgrouds, care-givers'' attitudes and their child- rearing methods are not quite obvious factors which cause differences between the two mentally-retarded groups in their adaptive behavior.
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