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This study compared mothers and fathers' regulation with respect to 29 children with intellectual disability (ID) and 30 typically developing (TD) children, matched on their mental age (MA), as they solved eight tasks using physical materials and computers. Seven parents' regulatory strategies were coded as they supported their child's identification of the objective, planning, attention, motivation, joint attention, behaviour regulation and evaluation. Children's performance was scored. Regulation by the parents of the two groups did not differ significantly, regardless of the medium, except that the degree of parental regulation of the child's behaviour was greater in the ID group than in the TD group. In tasks involving the computer, we observed a higher degree of regulation of children's planning and a lower degree of regulation of their evaluation for the two groups. The parents displayed significantly less regulation with respect to the children with the highest MA than towards the children with the lowest MA, in each group. There was a significant interaction effect of medium and children's MA on overall parents' regulation and on their support of identification of objective and of planning. Most parental strategies were negatively linked with ID and TD children's performance in tasks. In both groups, with control for MA, parental support with the identification of the objective, with planning and with attention was negatively linked to the corresponding self-regulatory strategies of the children with each medium; however, parents' joint attention was positively linked with children's joint attention. (Contains 6 tables.)

This study compares self-regulation in 29 children with intellectual disability and 30 typically developing children, who solved tasks using physical materials or computers. Their cognitive, linguistic levels were assessed in order to match the children of both groups. In the presence of their mothers and fathers, the children were asked to perform eight tasks presented using two types of medium (physical materials and computer). Performance and task completion time were recorded. Seven self-regulated strategies were analyzed: identification of objective, planning, self-attention, self-motivation, joint attention, behaviour regulation and self-evaluation. Children in the two groups did not differ in their self-regulation, and in each group, their chronological age had no significant effect on their self-regulation. However, whatever the medium used, their mental age had a significant effect on their overall self-regulation and on six self-regulated strategies: identification of objective, planning, self-attention, self-motivation, behaviour regulation, and self-evaluation. A positive link between overall self-regulation and language abilities was only obtained in the group of typical developers. In addition, although no significant effect of the medium on overall self-regulation was observed in each group, an effect of the type of medium was obtained concerning three specific self-regulated strategies, though not in the same direction: self-attention and self-evaluation are better with the computer than with physical materials, whereas joint attention is better with physical materials than with the computer. In both groups, overall self-regulation, whatever the medium, correlated positively and highly significantly with performance in different tasks (but not with completion time). In each group, variable correlational patterns were obtained between specific self-regulated strategies and performance in each task with each medium: inter-task variability of efficiency of distinct strategies was observed. (Contains 8 tables.)