Expecting change: mindset of staff supporting parents with mild intellectual disabilities.
Staff who see parenting skills as changeable shorten wait times and keep strong bonds with parents who have mild ID.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked staff who coach parents with mild intellectual disabilities about their mindset.
Staff answered survey questions on whether parenting skills can grow or stay fixed.
They also rated how long they would keep a family on the wait-list and how strong the working bond felt.
What they found
Workers who believe skills can grow planned shorter wait times.
The same growth-minded staff kept a good bond even when parents showed low adaptive skills.
A fixed mindset did not break the bond, but it let low skills drag the relationship down.
How this fits with other research
Taylor et al. (2010) showed parents with mild ID often expect less from their kids, and those low hopes lead to fewer school years.
Westendorp et al. (2014) flips the lens: when staff expect skills can grow, parents get faster help and a stronger bond.
Together the pair shows expectations matter on both sides of the table.
Zigler et al. (1989) argued that people with ID can keep growing; this study gives fresh data proving staff who agree act quicker and relate better.
Why it matters
You set the tone the moment you meet a parent. If you talk like skills are stuck, the wait grows and the bond frays. If you talk like change is possible, parents move up the list and stay engaged. Start your next intake by saying, "Parents can learn new tools; let’s find the first one today." Watch how the mood shifts.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
This study of staff supporting parents with mild intellectual disabilities or borderline intellectual functioning (MID) focused on staff mindset regarding the extent to which parenting skills of parents with MID can change (an incremental mindset) or are static (an entity mindset). Staff mindset was tested as a predictor of two outcome variables: quality of the working alliance and parental waiting time to ask professional support. In addition, mindset was tested as a moderator of associations between parental adaptive functioning and the two outcome variables. A small majority of staff (56%) held a more incremental oriented mindset. A more incremental oriented mindset was associated with a shorter intended waiting time to seek professional support. Staff mindset moderated the association between parental adaptive functioning and working alliance, that is, lower levels of parental adaptive functioning were associated with lower working alliance quality, but the association was less strong when staff held a more incremental oriented mindset. The results of the current study show that staff mindset might be important for the quality of support for parents with MID and for reducing the risks for families where parents have MID. Attention is due to staff mindset in improving support for parents with MID.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.08.015