The effect of the early intervention program - Portage - in reducing psychological stress among mothers of mentally handicapped children with Down syndrome

Abstract

The paper aims at knowing the effect of the early training intervention program– Portage- to reduce stress among mothers of mentally handicapped children (Down Syndrome). The researcher depends on the descriptive and experimental approaches to achieve the aims of his paper. He uses an empirically designed with a set part of the two groups (experimental and controlled), and chooses a sample deliberately consisting of (40 mothers). He, then, prepares the stress measure for mothers of mentally handicapped children (Down syndrome), consisting of (50) items of three areas and alternatives which applies on research sample, and it comes out with the following results:1-There is a statistically significant difference at the level (0.05) between the average scores of the study sample of controlled mothers for mentally handicapped children (Down syndrome), and the presupposed average of the community according to the post psychological tension measure of stress, in favor for the controlled group.2-There is a statistically significant difference at the level of (0.05) between the average scores of the experimental study sample and the presupposed average of the community according to the post psychological tension measure of stress, in favour for the experimental group.3-There is a statistically significant difference at the level of (0.05) between the average scores of the controlled group according to the pre and post psychological tension measures of stress, and in favour for post application.4-There is a statistically significant difference at the level of (0.05) between the average scores of the experimental group according to the pre and post psychological tension measures of stress, and in favour for post application which indicates the low level of psychological tension, for subjected to the program, and the effect size is huge according to Cohen's Standard5-There is not a statistically significant difference at the level of (0.05) between the average scores of the controlled group and the average scores of the experimental group according to the pre psychological tension measure of stress.6-There is not a statistically significant difference at the level of (0.05) between the average scores of the controlled group, and the average scores of the experimental group according to the post psychological tension measure of stress, and in favour for the experimental group, and the effect size is huge according to Cohen's Standard.