A Study on the Effect of Oral Health Education on the Mentally Retarded Children

정신지체장애인의 구강보건교육 효과에 관한 연구

The purpose of this study was to develop effective oral health education programs for mentally retarded children and promote their oral health, by offering oral health education for 45 mentally retarded children between age 6 to 20, tracking the change of their knowledge depending on the frequency of education, and examining the educational effect before and after oral health education. The children with mental retardation attended a special school for idiots in Gweonseon-gu, Suwon, Kyonggi Province, being able to take training(IQ 25-49). The education program was designed to be suitable for their cognitive power after consultation with a special school teacher. A teacher provided the same education seven times, once a week, and an interview was held with each of them to assess their correct answer rate. The findings of this study were as below: 1. The repeated oral health education served to have the children with mental retardation acquire better knowledge about harmful food for the teeth, what had to be done after eating cookies or candies between meals, the right time for toothbrushing, the concept of dental caries, and how to cope with dental caries(p<0.01). But after that education was offered four times, the frequency of that education made no difference. 2. The repeated oral health education increased, their knowledge on the role of the teeth and the right choice of toothbrush(p<0.01), yet there was no significant difference in their knowledge about oral health behavior, because they had already been familiar with that. 3. As a result of investigating the change of their oral health know-ledge before and after oral health education according to the type of handicap, the type of handicap made no significant difference to the change of their oral health knowledge. 4. The oral health education for the children with menial retardation had a significantly different effect on their knowledge about harmful food for the teeth, what had to be done after eating between meals, the right time for toothbrushing, the role of the teeth. the right choice and use of toothbrush, how to do toothbrushing, and fluorine(p<0.01).