The Comparison between Empathy Dimensions in Two Groups of Students with and without Intellectual Disabilities

Various researches have consistently shown that people with mental disabilities have difficulties in recognizing, describing and responding to the emotional states of others. The aim of this research is to compare empathy dimensions of two groups of students with and without intellectual disabilities. The statistical population of this research consists of all students with mild intellectual disability and typically developing students of elementary schools of Shiraz in the academic year of 2010-2011. 733 students, 339 with mild intellectual disabilities and 393 normal students, aged between 7 and 11 years old are selected as sample from elementary schools of Shiraz. The instrument of the study is the Griffith Empathy Measure (Dadds & et al, 2008). The scale has three dimensions; affectional, cognitive and general. Parents of the sample students are asked to complete the questionnaire. The reliability of the scale is studied by test-retest reliability (affectioal α=. 66, cognitive α=. 57, and general α=. 71). The validity is confirmed by internal consistency. The study achieved the following 1) there is no significant difference between the two groups in the affectional empathy dimension. In contrast, results indicate significant difference in the cognitive and general dimensions, because the typically developing students had higher scores in the cognitive and general dimensions than students with intellectual disabilities. 2) In the affectional dimension, females achieved higher scores than males. 3) In the general empathy dimension, females without disability had higher scores than males with intellectual disability.