Sexuality Education in Girls With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities and Role of Mothers

The present research was conducted to investigate the strategies used by mothers to give sexual education to their girl child with Intellectual Developmental Disabilities. The study also revealed that what type of problems mothers usually face while trying to educate their girl child about their sex. A mixed descriptive approach was used for this study. It was hypothesized that mostly mothers do prefer to use modeling techniques as compared to oral communication methods to educate their girls. By using purposive sampling method thirty mothers whose girls are enrolled in different special schools of Karachi were selected as samples. It was kept in view that all the girls whose mothers were selected for the study must be between the ages of 10 -18 years (i.e., start of puberty to adolescence). A structured questionnaire, which served as the instrument of the study was designed by using adaptations from instructional manual for parents of Florida Developmental Disability Council. Findings showed that mothers used both modeling and verbal instructions for sexuality education and preferred that both schools and parents should collaborate on providing this education. In the light of obtained results, it is recommended that mothers need support and guidance from school administration and from other professionals to provide sex education to their girl child.