Quality of life in adolescents with a disability and their parents: the mediating role of social support and resilience

The aim of this study was to test whether the effect of the pile-up of demands associated with a disability on quality of life, was mediated by resilience, quantity and quality of social support for adolescents with a disability and their parents. One hundred and thirty two parents, 90 mothers and 42 fathers and 111 adolescents, aged between 16 and 24 years completed measures of the pile-up of demands, social support, resilience and quality of life. Structural equation modeling with the bootstrap resampling method showed that the impact of the disability of their son/daughter on the quality of life of the parents was fully mediated through the parents' resilience and the quantity of social support and that resilience, however only partly, mediates the effect of adaptive skills on the quality of life of the adolescents with a disability. Limitations of the study and clinical implications are discussed

Interpersonal influence in families: development and psychometric evaluation of the influence in families questionnaire

The objective of this article was to develop and psychometrically evaluate a self-report instrument that would assess interpersonal influence in families. The Influence in Families Questionnaire (IFQ) was developed as a 16-item scale which assesses both positive and negative influence. The IFQ and its sub-scales, when administered to a sample of 581 adolescents and Young adults, showed high internal consistency and exhibited a promising pattern of convergent, divergent and criterion validity in relation to relevant criteria such as impact messages, family and attachment relationships and interpersonal sense of control. Overall, these results suggest that the IFQ is a useful instrument for measuring interpersonal influence within families

Young children with significant developmental delay differentiate home observed attachment behaviour towards their parents

Background: The hallmark of attachment is that contact, proximity and relief from stress are sought from specific individuals, laying important groundwork for healthy socioemotional functioning. This study investigated the extent to which differentiated attachment behaviour can be observed in young children with significant developmental delay (DD). Method: Video-taped observations of the parent–child and stranger–child interaction were conducted at home and complemented with questionnaires in 20 families with a child with significant DD (age 2–7 years with an average DD of 49 months). Results: Children displayed more intense and persistent contact-seeking, contact-maintaining and resistant behaviour in the episodes with their parent compared to the episodes with the stranger. Parent-reported secure attachment behaviour was slightly more characteristic towards mother compared to father. Conclusions: Even children with significant DD develop differentiated attachment behaviour. Detailed observations may support parents in identifying the interactions that make the attachment relationship with their child special

Exploring parental behavior and child interactive engagement : a study on children with a significant cognitive and motor developmental delay

Background and aims: Parenting factors are one of the most striking gaps in the current scientific literature on the development of young children with significant cognitive and motor disabilities. We aim to explore the characteristics of, and the association between, parental behavior and children's interactive engagement within this target group. Methods and procedures: Twenty-five parent-child dyads (with children aged 6-59 months) were video-taped during a 15-min unstructured play situation. Parents were also asked to complete the Parental Behavior Scale for toddlers. The video-taped observations were scored using the Child and Maternal Behavior Rating Scales. Outcomes and results: Low levels of parental discipline and child initiation were found. Parental responsivity was positively related to child attention and initiation. Conclusions and implications: Compared to children with no or other levels of disabilities, this target group exhibits large differences in frequency levels and, to a lesser extent, the concrete operationalization of parenting domains Further, this study confirms the importance of sensitive responsivity as the primary variable in parenting research

In search of a novel way to analyze early communicative behavior

The aim of this study was to develop a coding scheme that enables researchers and practitioners to conduct a detailed analysis of the communicative behavior of young children with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays. Currently, there is a paucity of methods to do conduct such an analysis. For the study, video observations of three different scenarios from 38 children with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays aged between 12 and 54 months, were used. Findings from the video observations served as the primary means for development of the coding scheme, which comprises three main categories – context, partner behavior, and individual behavior – and several subcategories. The coding scheme was used to document the early expressive communicative behavior of persons with significant cognitive and motor developmental delays in a detailed manner. This fine-grained information is necessary to differentiate children based on their communicative abilities, to monitor their communicative development longitudinally, and to inform person-centered communicative interventions

Comfort provided by parents versus strangers after eliciting stress in children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities: does it make a difference?

The relationships between children with severe or profound intellectual disabilities (ID) and their parents may fulfil attachment functions, such as regulating emotional responses to stress. This study examined the extent to which children with severe or profound ID differentiate between their parents and a stranger as a resource for stress-regulation. A home-based experimental paradigm was conducted and video-recorded in 38 families. Children (1–8 years) were exposed to four naturalistic stressors followed by comfort, randomly provided by the parents or the stranger. Emotional behaviour (arousal and valence) and the skin conductance level were simultaneously recorded. With regard to both emotional behaviour and skin conductance, children significantly differentiated between their parents as attachment figures and the stranger during stress and comfort, despite their impairments on various developmental domains. Behavioural observation and physiology show complementary manifestations of parent-child attachment in this population