The Self‐concept of Physically Handicapped Children and Their Non‐handicapped Siblings: An Empirical Investigation

Abstract

Following a brief review of studies devoted specifically to the self-concept of the child with a physical handicap and the non-handicapped sibling, 20 pre-adolescent physically handicapped children attending normal schools and their siblings nearest in age were administered the Piers-Harris Self-Concept Scale for Children. Their responses were then compared with those of 13 physically handicapped children attending special schools and their siblings, and with 18 non-handicapped children and their siblings. It was found that mean total scores were lower for both groups of physically handicapped children when compared to mean scores for the non-handicapped controls, with similar results amongst the groups of siblings, the mean scores for siblings of handicapped children being generally lower than those of the controls. The same results were found when the handicapped children's groups were pooled and analysed according to diagnosis. It was also found that there were few significant differences between pairs of target children and siblings, irrespective of their groupings.

A systematic review of the self‐concept of children with cerebral palsy compared with children without disability

“…Four studies [51][52][53][54] included similar numbers of males and females, whereas two studies 49,50 did not provide information on the sex of their participants. A variety of types of CP (e.g.…”

“…spastic diplegia, hemiplegia, quadriplegia, and athetoid) were represented in the three studies that described the type of CP of the participants. 49,51,54 Two studies 51,54 indicated the severity of CP in their participants with most participants having disabilities that were classified as mild or moderate in severity.…”

“…47 A further article was excluded because participants were aged up to 19 years. 48 Therefore, six studies were included in this systematic review [49][50][51][52][53][54] of which four were controlled trials (two matched and two unmatched) and two studies were observational studies where the results were compared with normative values. Table II summarizes the characteristics of the six included articles.…”

“…Table II summarizes the characteristics of the six included articles. [49][50][51][52][53][54] The methodological quality of the included articles varied, with quality assessment scores ranging from 1 to 4 out of 5.…”

“…In all six studies the self-report instrument was administered directly to the children themselves and not to the child's parent or carer. Four studies 49,[52][53][54] used an instrument that derived a global self-concept score by summing the individual scores of each of the items of the scale (Purdue Self-Concept Scale for Preschool Children, 4 Tennessee Self-Concept Scale, 55 'I think I am' Personality Inventory, 56 and Piers-Harris Self-concept Scale 57 ). Two studies 50,51 used instruments developed by Harter called the SelfPerception Profile for Adolescents 58 and the Self-Perception Profile for Children 2 respectively.…”