ABSTRACT
Background: Behavioral problems and issues related to emotion regulations differ in blind and normal children. There is negative association between behavioral problems and emotion regulation among blind children
Objective: To compare the behavioral problems and emotional regulation in blind and normal children and see their relationship and also study demographic differences in behavioral problems and emotional regulation
Study type, settings and duration: Cross-sectional study done at Special Education Centers and government Schools of Lahore and Gujranwala from January 2013 to January 2014
Subjects and Methods: Blind and normal children of both genders were selected from the Special Education Centers of Lahore and Gujranwala while normal children were selected from government Schools of Lahore and Gujranwala. The association between behavioral problems and emotional regulations was assessed in these two sets of children using translated and validated questionnaires of Child Problem Checklist and Self-Regulation Scale. For blind students these were converted into Braille. The data was analyzed by using SPSS Version 20
Results: There were 50 blind and 50 normal children. Results showed that normal children had higher emotion regulations whereas blind children had higher behavioral problems and overall behavioral problems had negative relationship with emotion regulation. Demography showed that males had higher behavioral problems where as females had higher emotional regulations. Children having highly educated parents had higher emotion regulations and lesser behavioral problems
Conclusion: Blind children had more behavioral problems and less emotion regulations and within gender, it was more in males
Policy message: Blind children need more care and social support as they have more behavioral problems and less emotion regulation