Vocational education and community integration of young adults with mental retardation in Kiamu county , Kenya

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Date
2013-07-01
Authors
Makanya, Margaret Wanjiru
Runo, M. N.
Wawire, V. K.
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Nairobi Academic Press
Abstract
T he purpose of this study was to investigate how vocational education and transitional services offered in vocational institutions helped young adults with ment a l retardation attain full community integra j ion, The study objectives included to; in v estigate the extent to which vocational education equips young adults with mental retardation with skills of community adjustment and identify different avenues through which they were integrated in the community. The study employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches . Quantitative analysis W :I S applied for the purpose of clarification, strengthening , explaining and supporting qualitative information . The research design was a descriptive case study . The target population comprised all young adults with mental retardation in Kiambu County . Th e sampl e of the stud y included 10 young adults with mental retardation . Other respondents were a headteacher/ employer , 2 vocational teachers and 9 parents. Data collection was done by use of interview guides, note t a king , audio recording and observation checklist . The actual data collection took 30 days . Codes were created according to the themes of the study for the data collected from interviews and for the observation text . Qualitative data analysis was carried out using the Atlas. ti computer software . Quantitative data analyses were manually carried out through tallying the frequency of segmented responses. The study established that community participation of young adults with mental retardation is very minimal. Further, the findings revealed that in as much as young adults with mental retardation were offered vocational skills in the special schools, what they were engaged in thereafter was not relevant to the skills they had trained in . This led to some of them disliking the kind of jobs they had, which for them are avenues of community integration.
Description
scanned Journal Article
Keywords
Mental retardation, Vocational Skills, Community Integration, Halpern model, Individualized Educatiom model (IEM) Kenya
Citation
Journal of special needs and disabilities studies vol. vol. no. 1 p.11-27. 1 July 2013