As habilidades sociais de adolescentes com síndrome de down e os estilos e práticas parentais

Abstract

The present study aimed to identify and describe the social skills of adolescents with Down Syndrome (DS) and the styles and parental educational practices of their mothers. In addition, it sought to verify the associations between parenting styles and practices and the children's social skills repertoire. Responding to the study, 14 mothers and 14 adolescents with DS aged between 13 and 18 years old. The instruments used were: Questionnaire of Family System Characteristics, Parenting Styles Questionnaire (PAQ), Parenting Practices Scale (EPP), Multimedia Inventory of Social Skills for Children (SMHSC-Del Prette), Checklist of Activities Daily Life and a semi-structured interview. The results have showed that the mother is the main responsible for the care of children with DS and for domestic activities. About the social support network, relatives from mother’s family are the ones who offer the most support, highlighting the maternal grandmother. About the repertoire of social skills of adolescents with DS, the most of them had a behavioral repertoire with a predominance of skilled reactions. The majority of the adolescents with the highest proportion of non-skilled reactions had a predominance of passive non-skilled reactions, which are considered more tolerable when compared to active non-skilled reactions. Regarding the evaluation of social skills classes, the adolescents had higher scores on empathy and civility and self-control. The most of mothers have an authoritative parenting style followed by the authoritarian. About their parenting practices, they use behavioral supervision and emotional support practices more frequently. Statistically significant correlations were found between parental practice of responsibility demandingness and the social skills of the children, suggesting that the more intense the use of such practices, the more skillful the teenager's repertoire is. It is necessary to conduct new research with a larger sample of participants which may allow for more robust and sophisticated analyzes.