Narrative Self-Representations of Socially Oriented Expectations of Persons with Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

The article examines the theoretical and methodological foundations and empirical implementation of the approach to the study of narrative self-representations in the field of socially oriented expectations of young and adult persons with intellectual disabilities. Socially oriented expectations largely determine the behavioral representations of the subject in relation to the outside world and other people. There are no special methods for studying the socially oriented expectations of adults with intellectual disabilities, in connection with which an approach can be proposed using the content analysis of narrative representations obtained in the framework of the study of socially oriented personality self-structures (social self). In this case, the coding is based on two parameters: the frequency of occurrence of representative references and the emotional orientation of representative references to socially oriented expectations. With the use of latent coding, based on the semantic analysis of speech units and representative references, it becomes possible to distinguish semantic clusters describing areas of life for which respondents have socially oriented expectations of a particular emotional orientation. This approach makes it possible to overcome the difficulties of analyzing the verbal production of persons with intellectual disabilities, arising in connection with the presence of systemic speech underdevelopment in the latter. The high values of the coefficient of agreement of expert opinions obtained in this study indicate the relevance of the proposed method for obtaining reliable data. The quantitative ratio of the narrative representations of socially oriented expectations between adolescence and adulthood changes insignificantly, there is a qualitative redistribution of the inter-thematic semantic load, as well as a change in the emotional component of the narrative representations of socially oriented expectations of persons with mild intellectual disabilities.

Keywords

• mild mental retardation
• socially oriented expectations
• self-awareness
• narrative self-representations
• adults
• adolescents