Predictors of distress and well-being in parents of young children with developmental delays and disabilities: the importance of parent perceptions.
Teaching parents to reframe and feel empowered predicts lower distress and higher well-being when their child with delays starts school.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kocher et al. (2015) asked parents of preschoolers with delays how they felt during school transition. They used a survey to measure distress, well-being, and coping styles.
Kids had autism, Down syndrome, or other delays. The team wanted to know which parent traits best predicted mental health.
What they found
Two parent skills came out on top: reframing and empowerment. Parents who used these skills reported less distress and more positive feelings.
Reframing means seeing the same event in a new light. Empowerment means feeling able to act and be heard.
How this fits with other research
Baker et al. (2005) and Ellingsen et al. (2014) also found optimism shields moms of young kids with delays. P et al. add new tools—reframing and empowerment—to the same shield.
Gallagher et al. (2018) tracked families for years and showed child behavior problems keep parents depressed if supports stop. The new study says teach coping early, not just watch.
Burrows et al. (2018) showed empowerment helps families of adults leaving institutions. P et al. show the same boost works at preschool entry, closing the age gap.
Why it matters
You can teach reframing in brief parent meetings. Try asking, "What is one good thing that could come from this IEP goal?" Then link them to parent-led groups so they feel heard. These two moves may cut later depression more than fixing every behavior.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Moving from family-centred to child-centred models of service delivery can be stressful for parents as their young children with developmental delays and disabilities transition into school. The purpose of this paper was to explore and compare predictors of both distress and well-being in parents during this transition period. METHODS: A sample of 155 mothers of 113 boys and 42 girls participated in the study. The mean age of the children was 4.9 years and their diagnoses included autism spectrum disorder (52%); unspecified intellectual disability/developmental delay (26%); Down syndrome (12%); other genetic conditions (4%) and other diagnoses (6%). Participants completed surveys primarily online focusing on child characteristics, family resources, parent coping strategies, parental distress and positive gain. RESULTS: Multiple regression analyses were conducted to determine predictors of parent reported distress and positive gain. Parent coping variables were the strongest predictors of both positive gain and parental distress, with reframing emerging as a predictor of positive gain and parent empowerment emerging as a predictor of both greater positive gain and lower parental distress. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study highlight not only the importance of including positive as well as negative outcomes in research with parents but also the importance of including parent characteristics such as coping strategies (e.g. reframing and empowerment/self-efficacy) as potential predictors of outcome in such studies.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2015 · doi:10.1111/jir.12160