Comparison of fear in children with and without mental retardation : a study from Turkey

Abstract

Fear, which is present right from the very early periods of human life is one of the most common forms of emotion. Intelligence is also suggested to be among the major factors that affect fear. This study was designed and conducted to examine the fears of trainable mentally retarded children and those without mental retardation. Eighty-eight trainable mentally retarded childern aged 10- 15 years and 122 children without mental retardation aged between 7-15 years were included in the study. The "Fear Survey for Children with and without Mental Retardation" developed by Ramirez and Kratochwill was used as the data collection tool. After statistical analysis, a significant relationship was found between mental retardation and the healthy states in terms of both the number of fear episodes and in its severity.