| Summary: | Mentally handicapped people do not seek professional help, the treatment is initiated by the parents or professional workers who find their behaviour disturbing. But it is impossible to alter the child's behaviour without changing the reactions of the adults. This often calls for the alteration of their disfunctional automatic thoughts. These may be related to their demands and connected with basic principles of this approach, or with their attitude towards the child's handicap or his future. The treatment tries to diminish the behaviour excesses and still reach the desired reactions.The behaviour techniques, approapriate for the mentioned population, are more frequently used.This does not mean that the cognitive techniques are unsuitable.The literature mentions the studies of moderately mentally handicapped persons, where the treatment included covered conditioning, images and imagination. This article describes the examples of application of cognitive techniques with light and moderate level of mental retardation.
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