This paper investigate the effect of parents’ education background and family monthly income on the Intelligence Quotient
(IQ) of students with special needs in Kelantan, Malaysia. This cross-sectional method study was employed multistage
random sampling to obtain information drawn from 130 participants from 10 selected school in Kelantan, Malaysia.
Questionnaire was used to obtain parents’ education background, family monthly income and demographic variables.
Students IQ were assessed using Comprehensive Test for Non-Verbal Intelligence (CTONI 2nd Edition). Data analysis involve
independent sample t-test, one-way between group ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation and multiple linear regression. From
analysis of IQ score, 63.8% of the special needs students scored very poor IQ, 12.3% scored below average and only
1.5% score average IQ. Significant mean difference were revealed between age group (p = 0.002), parents’ education (p
= 0.018) and family monthly income (p < 0.05) on special needs students IQ. Post-hoc tukey shows significance between
parents who never went to school, went to secondary school (p = 0.037) and university/college (p = 0.021). In term of
family monthly income, significance difference were found between family with low and high monthly income (p < 0.05).
Family monthly income (r = 0.393, p < 0.01) showed positive moderate correlation on special needs students IQ. After
being forwarded by multiple linear regression, it was found that family monthly income (B = 3.605, p < 0.05) and age
group of special needs students (B = 0.879, p = 0.002) were significant predictor for IQ score and explained 22.5% of
the variance (R2
= 0.225, F (5,124) = 83.94, p < 0.05. Overally, majority of special needs students in current study have
very poor IQ score. Further explanation are discussed on the paper.
Parents or caregivers of children with learning disabilities have been shown to experience increases in stress and greater negative caregiving consequences than those with typically developing children. The current study sought to assess the perceived stress among Malay caregivers of children with learning disabilities in Kelantan. The Malay version of Perceived Stress Scale 10 items was administered to a sample of 40 caregivers of children with learning disabilities who were registered to five Pusat Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti (PDK) in Kelantan. Higher scores indicate higher levels of stress. The caregivers had mean age of 47.68 (SD = 9.18) years old, of whom 90% were fathers or mothers. Ninety percent of them were married, majority were unemployed or housewives and had secondary school education. The majority of children with learning disabilities were males and half of them were Down Syndrome children. The mean total Perceived Stress Scale score of the caregivers was 16.77 (SD = 5.74). There were no significant associations between total perceived stress score and any of the independent variables. The mean total perceived stress score showed that the perceived stress level was in the category of slightly higher than average and health concern level was high, while the average stress level was between score of 12 to 15. In conclusion, this result indicated that the caregivers had slightly higher levels of stress than the average score, and might increase susceptibility to stress-induced illness.