Severity of Mental Challenge: Determinant of Quality of Sibling Relationship

The present study investigated the effect of severity of mental challenge on the sibling relationship of normal children with their mentally challenged siblings. For the present study, 150 families with mentally challenged children were selected from 3 different rehabilitation centres of Delhi by randomly drawing 50 children from each degree of mental challenge, viz. mild, moderate and severe. The respondents for the present study comprised of one (any) of the parents and one (any) normal sibling of mentally challenged children making a total of 300. Sibling Relationship Scale was administered on respondents to arrive at meaningful inferences about sibling relationship between mentally challenged children and their normal siblings. Findings of the present study revealed that higher the severity of mental challenge significantly higher was warmth/closeness and relative status/power and significantly less was conflict and rivalry between mentally challenged children and their normal siblings. Address for correspondence: