Maternal stress, well-being, and impaired sleep in mothers of children with developmental disabilities: a literature review.
Check mom’s stress, sleep, and mood each session—child gains depend on it.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lee (2013) read 28 past studies about moms of kids with developmental disabilities.
The review looked at how these mothers feel: their stress, sleep, and mood.
It asked how these three problems feed each other over time.
What they found
Mothers of children with DDs show higher chronic stress, poor sleep, and more depressive symptoms.
Stress, sleep loss, and low mood bounce off each other in both directions.
No single factor stands alone; each one can make the others worse.
How this fits with other research
Azad et al. (2013) extends these findings by showing stress stays flat in early childhood then drops unevenly in middle childhood, so age matters.
Adams et al. (2018) narrows the lens to rare genetic syndromes and finds chronic challenging behavior raises stress but not depression, adding detail to the same stress picture.
Lancioni et al. (2006) seems to contradict the flat-stress idea by showing stress climbs steadily for mothers of children with Down syndrome, but the difference is diagnosis-specific, not a true clash.
Beaumont et al. (2008) flips the script toward solutions: when moms use and like health-care services, their stress and depression fall, giving a practical lever.
Why it matters
If mom is exhausted and down, parent training gains fade fast. Track her stress, sleep, and mood at every visit. A quick 0-10 rating takes one minute. Offer flex scheduling, respite names, or telehealth if scores stay high. Child progress depends on caregiver well-being.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add three 0-10 Likert boxes (stress, sleep, mood) to your parent check-in sheet.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Having children with developmental disabilities (DDs) requires a high level of caregiving responsibilities, and existing studies support that mothers of children with DDs experience high levels of maternal stress as well as poor sleep and well-being. Given the fact that the number of children with DDs has increased, an up-to-date literature review is necessary to identify factors associated with maternal stress, sleep, and well-being. In addition, understanding these factors and their relationships may provide better strategies in designing effective interventions that can reduce the burden in mothers of children with DDs. This review summarized 28 scientific research papers that examined maternal stress, sleep, and well-being in mothers of children with DDs in past 12 years. The study findings indicate that mothers of children with DDs experience higher levels of stress than mothers of typically developing children, and it remains high over time. In addition, these mothers often encounter depressive symptoms as well as poor sleep quality. The study results also reveal that there is a bidirectional relationship between maternal stress and depressive symptoms as well as between poor sleep quality and depressive symptoms. For example, higher stress mothers experienced more depressive symptoms. Mothers of children with DDs with poor sleep quality are significantly associated with more depressive symptoms. Child behavior problems were significantly associated with both maternal stress and depressive symptoms, but cautious interpretation is warranted due to the shared variance between child behavior problems, maternal stress, and depressive symptoms. Methodological guidelines for future research involve the use of reliable and valid instruments for the measurement of child behavior problems, maternal stress, and sleep. Recommendations for future research are included.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2013.09.008