Psychosocial Adjustment of Adolescents and Young Adults With Intellectual Disabilities

Issues with adolescents with intellectual disabilities have received little attention in the research literature. This study compared adolescents with and without intellectual disabilities on several indices of psychosocial adjustment. The participants were selected from a large longitudinal database and comparisons were made at three points in time. Analyses indicated that adolescents with intellectual disabilities report mild to moderate depression over time when compared with their typically developing peers, they express more family connectedness, but differ little on measures of self-concept. In later adolescence, typically developing adolescents appear to have a significant increase in optimism that is not experienced by the adolescents with intellectual disabilities. Implications of the findings are discussed as well directions for further investigation.