Causal Reasoning in Mild Mental Disabled Children

This study is focused to analyze mild mental retardation children’s ability to make causal attributions from sparse data. The research method selected was that of an unifactorial experiment starting from the assumption that children with mild mental retardation should ask for help or explore the environment following the causal attribution they will do according to the statistical data they receive. This study was conducted on a sample of 23 mild mental retardation children (ages between 9 and 12). The participants were randomly divided into two experimental groups and they were asked to complete a specific task (press a button to scroll a set of images). The results obtained using Fisher’s Exact Test led to assuming the null assumption and rejecting the experimental assumption (p=,170; p<0,05). Although the statistical analysis did not highlight significant associations between the dependent and independent variable, the frequency table indicated that children in group one asked for help more frequent, while children in group two rather explored for solutions, as assumed in this study. Taken into account these results, this study emphasizes the need for educational and psychological intervention to reduce the problems that the mild mental retardation children are confronting regarding cognitive development in general.