Comparison of Siblings Relationships in Families with Mentally Retarded, Deaf and Nondisabled Children

The relationship between people with disabilities and their siblings appears as an important issue because of the important implications that it has in child development. It attracted the attention of many researchers to itself. The purpose of this study was to study the relationship between siblings of mentally retarded, deaf and nondisabled children. The method is a causal- comparative. Statistical population was including all mentally retarded, deaf and nondisabled students’ mothers in Rasht in 2012. The subject was consisted of parents that were selected by cluster sampling method. Shaffer and Edgerton's behavioural indexes of siblings scale was used in this study. Results of one-way analysis of variance showed that there is no significant difference in Siblings Relationships in any of the groups. It can be concluded by the finding of this study that probably growing up with a disabled sibling cannot explain the reason of psychiatric and behavioural problems.