Emotional Development in Children with Intellectual Disability — A Comparative Approach with “Normal” Children

Cristina Maria Gonçalves Pereira, Sónia Maria de Matos Faria 
(School of Education, Polytechnic Institute of Castelo Branco, Portugal)

Abstract: Emotional development in children with intellectual disability, in a comparative perspective with “normal” children is a study that has emerged as a need to deepen the knowledge on this area. It has focused in a case study methodology with the use of three validated instruments to a sample of twenty children attending the same school, with ages between eleven and fourteen years old, ten of which presented a mild intellectual disability and the other ten were “normal” children. The research has been developed in order to give answers to questions related with the way that children with intellectual disability express, identify and regulate their emotions. The results suggest that children with intellectual disability identify emotions, in a general way, the same way that “normal” children do, being more difficult, however, the identification of fear and shame. Regarding to the expression of emotions the study suggests that there are no significant differences between the two groups, although the group of mentally disabled children refuges itself more in fantasy and less in reality, when compared with “normal” children.

Key words: intellectual disability, emotional development, emotions, identification, expression, regulation