Abstract:

Children who can read more quickly than their peers, can research and understand ideas and events, and are motivated to find solutions to problems are considered gifted. In terms of mental development, children with intellectual disabilities are more delayed than kids with typical development. Families with gifted and mentally challenged children interact in their social environment in ways including providing social support. The safe connections that a person makes with other people are what they see as social support, and they are crucial for helping that person overcome the problems he runs into and protecting him from all the consequences in his life. The purpose of this study is to compare parents of children with intellectual disabilities and parents of talented children in terms of their perceptions of social support, taking various factors into consideration. The survey model, which is a quantitative research technique, was employed in this study. 462 student families in different cities in Turkey, as well as 177 families with children who have been diagnosed with mental retardation and 285 families with children who have been identified as having special talents, make up the sample for this study, which was selected using the purposeful sampling method. As instruments for gathering data, "Information Form" and "Parental Social Support Scale" were utilized. The research was analyzed using the SPSS 20.0 program. The data show that families with gifted and mentally challenged children experienced limited and positive relationship with societal support. However, overall income level and the total number of children did have a significant impact on how families with talented children regarded society support. Parental closeness, mother/father education level, and the total number of diagnosed children did not. It has been found that the total income level, mother's education level, and the total number of children are effective while parental closeness, father's education level, and the total number of diagnosed children have no effect on how families with mentally retarded children perceive social support. Researchers may be advised to design organized studies using qualitative research techniques to ascertain how different need groups perceive social support.

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