Family and intellectual abilities of adolescents as the factors of adolescents’ prosocial behaviour

Abstract

Previous studies have offered important findings on the frequency of negative forms of social behaviour in children with intellectual disabilities and typically developing children. However, there is a lack of studies dealing with the link between the prosocial behaviour of youth and family variables. The aim of the conducted research was to study the degree of connection of the quality of parenting and the level of intellectual development of adolescents with the prosocial behaviour of adolescents. The sample consisted of 416 respondents, aged 12 to 18, divided into two groups. One group comprised 210 adolescents (130 typically developing adolescents and 80 adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities) without parental care, and the other group included 206 adolescents (130 typically developing adolescents and 76 adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities) with parental care. For the assessment of prosocial behaviour we used the subscale Prosocial behaviour from the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaires - SDQ. The results have confirmed that, regardless of intellectual status, young people without parental care exhibited prosocial behaviour significantly less frequently than young people with parental care. The findings are discussed within the context of the starting model. The concluding part of the paper points to the fact that cognitive deficits are not a limiting factor in the development of prosocial behaviour of adolescents with mild intellectual disabilities and that further research is needed on the influence of environmental factors on the exhibition of prosocial behaviour in adolescents.