본 연구는 경도지적장애 청소년과 언어연령을 일치시킨 일반학생의 사회적 의사소통 능력과 마음읽기 능력, 또래인기도간의 관계를 알아보려는 연구이다. 이를 위해 경도지적장애 청소년과 언어연령 일치 일반학생이 사회적 의사소통 능력과 마음읽기 능력에서 차이를 보이는지 알아보고, 각 집단의 사회적 의사소통 능력과 마음읽기 능력, 또래인기도의 상관에 대해 분석하였다. 연구 결과는 다음과 같다. 첫째, 경도지적장애 청소년은 사회적 의사소통 능력에서 유의미하게 낮은 결과를 보였다. 둘째, 경도지적장애 청소년과 언어연령일치 일반학생은 마음읽기 능력에서 유의미한 차이를 나타내지 않았다. 셋째, 경도지적장애 청소년의 사회적 의사소통 능력, 마음읽기 능력, 또래인기도사이에 강한 정적 상관이 나타났다. 사회적 의사소통 점수가 높을수록 마음읽기 과제 수행 정도가 좋았으며 또래사이에 사회적 선호도도 높게 나타났다. 넷째, 언어연령일치 일반학생 역시 사회적 의사소통 능력, 마음읽기 능력, 또래인기도 사이에 정적 상관을 보였다. 이러한 연구 결과는 경도지적장애인의 원만한 사회생활을 위한 언어교육에 있어서 의미론적, 구문론적 측면의 접근만이 아닌 화용론적 측면의 사회적 의사소통 중재의 중요성을 시사한다.

The purpose of this study is to find out correlation between social communication ability, mind-reading ability, and peer popularity among adolescent with mild intellectual disability, especially, correlation between ability of social communication and peer popularity. For this, social communication and mind of theory ability of adolescents with mild intellectual disability and normal preschoolers whose language abilities were on equal level with the adolescents were evaluated and its correlation with peer popularity was analyzed. Results from the study are described as follows. Firstly, it was found that there is a significant difference in social communication ability between those two groups. Secondly, there was no significant difference in mind-reading ability between the two groups. This led to a result that vocabulary age and language age are identical due to the fact that mind-reading ability is correlated with vocabulary age. Thirdly, there was a strong positive correlation between social communication ability, mind-reading ability, and peer popularity among the adolescent group with mind intellectual disability. As the score of social communication ability was higher, better performance on mind-reading task was as well as higher social preference among peers. Fourthly, it was found that there is a positive correlation between social communication ability, mind-reading ability, and peer popularity among the normal preschooler group. These results imply that even though the adolescent group with mild intellectual ability and the normal preschooler group was selected with their language age was controlled, there was a difference in social communication ability, which showed a positive correlation with popularity. This result suggests a significance of intervention in social communication ability in the context of pragmatic approach as well as semantic approach and syntax approach.