SOCIO-ECONOMIC AND PERSONALITY FACTORS AS PREDICTORS OF FUNCTIONAL READING SKILLS AMONG ADOLESCENTS WITH MILD- INTELLECTUAL-DISABILITY IN PUBLIC SPECIAL SCHOOLS IN SOUTHWESTERN, NIGERIA

Abstract

Possession of functional reading skills aids knowledge acquisition and effective daily living of adolescents with Mild-Intellectual-Disability (MID). Many of these adolescents find it difficult to effectively acquire these skills. Inspite of the existing literature on the intellectual and cognitive structures of these adolescents with MID, there is limited studies on the combined influence of their social-economic and personality factors. This study, therefore, examined social-economic (home and school environments, social-economic status, parental education attainment, parenting styles and teacher-student relationship) and personality (extroversion, introversion and neuroticism) factors as predictors of functional reading skills of adolescents with MID in public special schools in Southwestern Nigeria.

Social learning, Behaviourist and Problem-behaviour theories provided the framework, while the descriptive survey design was adopted. Twenty-one public special schools with high numbers of adolescents with MID across six states were purposively selected: Lagos (8), Oyo (5),Osun(3),Ogun(3), Ekiti(1) and Ondo(1).Two hundred adolescents in primary III to VI who possessed Intelligence Quotient between 52 and 68were purposively selected across the 21 schools. The instruments used were Home Observation Measurement (r=0.75), Children Personality (r=0.72), Parental Parenting (r=0.75) Inventories; Reading Skill (r=0.70) and Slossons Intelligence (r= 0.82) Tests; and McCroskey Introversion (r=0.84), Children Neuroticism (r=0.75), Parental Socio-economic (r=0.75), School Environment (r=0.85) scales. Data were analysed using Pearson Product Moment Correlation and Multiple Regression Analysis at 0.05 level of significance.

Adolescents with MID were females (57.0%) and males (42.5%) with an average age of 16.5years.Teacher-students relationship (r=0.21), school environment (r=0.19), parenting styles (r=0.19) and home environment (r=0.18) had positive correlations with functional reading skills of Adolescents with MID, while socio-economic status, parental education attainment, extroversion, introversion and neuroticism did not. There was a significant joint prediction of socio-economic and personality factors on functional reading skills (F(9, 190)=3.07; R2=0.13 ); accounting for 8.6% of its variance. Teacher-student relationship (β=0.24, t=3.04), home (β=1.07, t=1.57), school (β=.15, t=1.33) and parenting styles (β=0.14, t=2.22) had relative contributions to functional reading skills of Adolescents with MID, while socio-economic status, parental education attainment, extraversion, introversion and neuroticism had none.

Good parenting styles, cordial teacher-student relationship, and conducive home and school environments positively predicted functional reading skills of adolescents with mild-intellectual-disability in public special schools in Southwestern Nigeria. For effective inculcation of functional reading skills among adolescents with mild-intellectual-disability, there is the need to constantly ensure good parenting styles, cordial teacher-student relationship, and conducive home and school environments.

Keywords: Functional reading skills, Adolescents with mild intellectual disability, Public special schools in Southwestern Nigeria Word count: 395