Rational emotive health therapy for the management of depressive symptoms among parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities in English language.

BACKGROUND: There is little data in developing countries such as Nigeria with regard to the impact of caring for their children with intellectual and reading disability (IRD) on the quality of life of the parents and the risk of psychopathology. OBJECTIVE: The main objective of the study was to assess the level of psychopathology, i.e., depression among parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities. METHODS: This was pretest/posttest control group design with 198 parents (99 fathers/99 mothers) of 100 children with the diagnosis of IRD. The measures used in this study for data collection was Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Repeated measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) was employed for data analysis. RESULTS: Result obtained showed a significant high proportion of depressive symptoms among parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities at initial assessment. Furthermore, the REHT intervention resulted in a significant reduction in depression of parents in treatment group as compared to those in the control group. CONCLUSION: The presence of a child with intellectual and reading disabilities does not cause parents to become depressed but irrational beliefs about their children's mental and reading deficiencies may contribute to unhealthy thinking and feelings about the future of their children. REHT is very effective in assisting depressed parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities to think rationally about their children and work towards overcoming disability-related as well as behavior-related irrational beliefs. The mental health providers, therapists and counselors should apply the REHT in managing people with psychological distress especially parents of children with intellectual and reading disabilities who may have psychological diagnosis of depression.

Effect of peer tutoring on social adjustment among English learners with hearing impairments in special primary schools.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Different studies have shown the prevalence of high level of social adjustment among English learners with hearing impairment. The objective of the present study was to investigate the effect of peer tutoring as a social adjustment intervention among English learners with hearing impairment in special primary schools in Enugu State, Nigeria. METHOD: The area of the study was Enugu State. The study adopted a pre-test-post-test quasi experimental research design. The population of the study comprised 30 pupils with language hearing impairment. There was no sampling because the population size was small and manageable. The instrument for data collection was a social adjustment scale with reliability coefficient of 0.88. After the experiment, the experimental group were taught using peer tutoring teaching strategy while the control group were taught with conventional teaching method. Analysis of covariance was used to test the formulated hypotheses at 0.05 level of significance. RESULTS: Results showed that peer tutoring teaching strategy significantly increased social adjustment of pupils with language hearing impairment. Gender did not significantly influence social adjustment of pupils with language hearing impairment. The interaction effect of teaching strategies and gender on social adjustment of pupils with language hearing impairment was not significant. CONCLUSION: Peer tutoring can be used to alleviate social adjustment problem of pupils with language hearing impairment. The implications of the results for curriculum innovation were highlighted.

Improving knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English language speaking children in rural areas through educational digital storytelling.

BACKGROUND/OBJECTIVE: Previous research efforts have shown the need for improvement of knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Hence, the study at hand was designed to investigate the effect of using educational digital storytelling intervention to satisfy this need of English Language children in rural areas in Nigeria. METHOD: The study adopted a randomized control design involving a pretest, post-test, and follow-up measures. Eight-four children (n = 84) took part in the study. The HIV Knowledge Questionnaire (HIV-KQ-18) and the Perceived Risk of HIV Scale (PRHS) were used for data collection. Data were analyzed using t test statistics. RESULT: The educational digital storytelling intervention in appreciably improved knowledge and perception of English language children in rural areas who participated in the intervention concerning HIV/AIDS compared with their peers in the no-intervention control group. The improvement in knowledge and perception gained was also maintained throughout the follow-up evaluation period. CONCLUSION: The present study showed that the use of educational digital storytelling could improve knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among English Language speaking children in rural areas. Educational digital storytelling intervention effectively improved knowledge and perception of HIV/AIDS among children in rural areas. In return, we recommend that rural sociologists, counselors, language and communication experts, child educators, and other professionals involved in public health especially, as it concerns children be skilled in the use and application of educational digital storytelling intervention procedures to facilitate the move towards adopting the method in their professional practices.