| Summary: | Parents respond in many diverse ways to raising a child with special needs, ranging
from gaining insights and appreciation for the gifts and personal growth that the child
has brought, to feelings of grief over the loss of the expected child. Furthennore, the
opposite occurs when the child with special needs impacted the whole family, resulting
in the distress of parents from psychological stress that needs professional assistance
from specialists and counsellors. Based on this premise, the study aims to detennine the
effectiveness of the cognitive behavioural mentoring program in reducing cognitive and
psychological problems of the child's independent performance among mothers of
children with cerebral palsy in post-evaluation. The research is based on quantitative
data involving a quasi-experimental research approach which were collected from 50
mothers of children with special needs from Irbid City, Jordan. The data were analysed'
using the Statistical Package for the Social Science (SPSS) ver ion 25 and treated using
descriptive and inferential statistics. The statistical tests used in the study were MannĀ
Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The Mann-Whitney U results revealed that
the experimental group perfonned significantly better than those in the control group in
both three stages of the .distribution of questionnaires, specifically the mothers of
children with cerebral palsy. Additionally the Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test showed that
there was a significant difference in the experimental group before, after and delayed
exposure to the program. Nevertheless, this is not the case for the control group as the
results showed insignificant difference before, after and delayed distribution of the
questionnaires. The study contributed by designing a l2-session Cognitive Behavioural
Mentoring Program for effective intervention for mothers of children with cerebral
palsy. It also focuses on the main psychological, behavioural and cognitive domains to
reduce the stress among mothers of children with cerebral palsy. Therefore, it is
suggested that the government should provide more training sessions, employ the
collaborative activity as an out-of-class assignment, and carefully monitor the process
as well as providing sufficient services and support for mothers of children with cerebral
palsy.
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