Sibling relationships in adults who have siblings with or without intellectual disabilities.
Adult siblings mostly stay close when one has intellectual disability; only tiny dips in calls and warmth appear.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Jones et al. (2010) mailed surveys to the adults. Half had a brother or sister with intellectual disability. The rest had siblings without disabilities.
The survey asked about phone calls, warmth, conflict, and help given or received.
What they found
Most answers looked the same in both groups. Brothers and sisters still felt close.
Only tiny gaps showed up. Adults with disabled siblings called slightly less. Warmth dropped a little when the disability was severe.
Conflict levels were equal, but the reasons differed. Money and care duties sparked fights more often in the disability group.
How this fits with other research
Matson et al. (2009) found adults with ID have only three-person social networks and little paid work. That picture sounds worse than the sibling story. The difference is focus: L counted all community ties, while A asked only about brothers and sisters.
Chung et al. (2019) watched high-school students with IDD and saw them talk to peers just 25 % of the time. Again, the setting explains the gap: teens in class face different social rules than grown siblings outside school.
Erickson et al. (2016) showed that closer contact lowers stigma. A’s finding of warm sibling bonds supports this: life-long contact in families may protect against outsider prejudice.
Why it matters
You can reassure families. Brothers and sisters usually stay connected in adulthood even when one has significant needs. Use this hope to ease parent guilt and to plan long-term care.
Note the small drop in phone contact. A simple prompt sheet or shared online calendar can keep those calls coming.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
There is relatively little research on the relationships between adults with intellectual disability and their siblings, despite the potential importance of these relationships for either individual's psychological well-being and future care roles that might be adopted by adult siblings. In the present study, sibling relationships of adults with adult siblings with (N=63) and without (N=123) intellectual disability were explored. Contact, warmth, conflict, and rivalry were measured using questionnaires available as an on-line survey. Expressed emotion was measured using the Five Minute Speech Sample over the telephone to establish an independently coded measure of criticism from the participant towards their sibling. Overall, there were few group differences in contact and sibling relationship. There was less telephone contact in the intellectual disability group, and less reported warmth in the relationship with siblings with intellectual disability although this was mainly associated with severe/profound intellectual disability. Exploratory analyses were conducted of the correlates of sibling relationships in both the intellectual disability and control groups. These analyses revealed a small number of different associations especially for conflict, which was lower when either the participant or sibling was younger in the control group but associated with relative age in the intellectual disability group.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2010 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2009.09.007