Pre-school children with and without developmental delay: behaviour problems and parenting stress over time.
Behavior problems and parent stress fuel each other in preschoolers with delays, so treat both early.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Katz et al. (2003) watched preschoolers for one year. Some kids had developmental delays. Some did not.
Parents filled out forms about stress and child behavior. The team looked at how both changed over time.
What they found
Kids with delays kept high behavior problems. Their parents kept high stress.
Problems and stress fed each other. When one rose, the other did too.
How this fits with other research
Reyer et al. (2006) saw the same loop in toddlers. Behavior, not the label, drove stress.
Giovagnoli et al. (2015) found the same in preschool autism. Behavior mattered more than autism severity.
Yorke et al. (2018) pooled many studies. They still saw the link, but said proof of a two-way street is mixed.
Azad et al. (2013) followed moms longer. Stress stayed flat in early years, then dropped. L et al. only saw the flat part.
Why it matters
You now know stress and behavior lock together as early as age three. Start behavior plans fast. Add parent stress checks at intake and every six months. When stress is high, teach coping skills right away. Easing one side helps the other.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Children with intellectual disability are at heightened risk for behaviour problems and diagnosed mental disorder. METHODS: The present authors studied the early manifestation and continuity of problem behaviours in 205 pre-school children with and without developmental delays. RESULTS: Behaviour problems were quite stable over the year from age 36-48 months. Children with developmental delays were rated higher on behaviour problems than their non-delayed peers, and were three times as likely to score in the clinical range. Mothers and fathers showed high agreement in their rating of child problems, especially in the delayed group. Parenting stress was also higher in the delayed group, but was related to the extent of behaviour problems rather than to the child's developmental delay. CONCLUSIONS: Over time, a transactional model fit the relationship between parenting stress and behaviour problems: high parenting stress contributed to a worsening in child behaviour problems over time, and high child behaviour problems contributed to a worsening in parenting stress. Findings for mothers and fathers were quite similar.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2003 · doi:10.1046/j.1365-2788.2003.00484.x