Daily Living Activities of Children with Mild Mental Retardation: Effect of Nursing Intervention

Background: When a child with mental retardation is born, parents need assistance in promoting normal developmental skills that are almost automatically learned by other children. The aim of this study was to assess activities of daily living of mildly mentally retarded children, plan, implement and evaluate nursing intervention program based on their needs. The research design was a quasi experimental research design . The present study was carried out at El Tarbya El Fekrya governmental school serving mildly mentally retarded children in Port Said City. The sample of the present study was 34 children. The tool that was used for data collections was adopted from Waziry (2002). The observational checklist was used twice pre and post program intervention for assessing the children's degree of independency related to daily living activities. The results revealed that all daily living activity skills namely; eating, drinking, dressing, grooming, personal hygiene and toileting skills are improved post intervention programme comparing with pre intervention with statistical significant difference in all of them.Itwas concluded that implementation of the designed nursing intervention program was successful in improving mildly mentally retarded children's skills.The study recommended design a periodic training program for mildly mentally retarded children and their parents according to their actual needs in the area of daily living activities, to help them to grow and develop to their optimal capacities to be independent in their life.