Self-Care in Children With Mild Cognitive Impairments

Abstract

Self-care is an area that aims to develop habits, knowledge and attitudes in helping one self. Children of the typical population adopt these skills by observing the activities of their parents or caregivers. In children with a mild cognitive impairment, the situation is different. Within this population, there are several developmental obstacles that cause delays in the adoption of self-care activities. The delayed development of imitation skills, low quality of ability for receptive speech, and frequent fluctuations in attention make it difficult to perform tasks in this field. However, research shows that, with adequate support, children with a mild cognitive impairment mainly develop self-care skills at the operational level. This paper describes the developmental specifics of children with a mild cognitive impairment in self-care, as well as adequate techniques for supporting these skills. Relying on Dorothea Orem's Self-Care Theory (Orem, 1991), a system of educational support for self-care skills is proposed. This system is used when a child has abilities to master these skills but requires minimal support. The methodological approach in Orem's Self-Care Theory has three main components: assessment of self-care skills, process schemes as a learning plan for the skills of self-care and implementation of the implemented. Adequate techniques used in learning self-care activities in children with a mild cognitive impairment are described in the paper by definition, with the given operationalization. These are: Task analysis, Creating a visual guide, Verbal and gesture stimulation, “Links in the chain”, Social stories, Video modeling and self-modeling and using mobile applications.