Family Developmental Risk Factors Among Adolescents with Disabilities and Children of Parents with Disabilities

• NCJ Number: 221226
• Journal: Journal of Adolescence Volume: 30 Issue: 6 Dated: December 2007 Pages: 1001-1019
• Author(s): Dennis P. Hogan; Carrie L. Shandra; Michael E. Msall
• Date Published: December 2007
• Length: 19 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: William T. Grant Foundation
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This paper investigates the differences in learning environments and family dynamics when households have a child or parent with a disability.

Abstract

Results indicate that children with disabilities experience similar learning environments as other children, but have somewhat weaker relationships with their parents. In two-parent families, mothers with disabilities are less involved in their children’s school than mothers without disabilities. Maternal disability also decreases the likelihood of an enriching home environment. However, family dynamics are unaffected as mothers with disabilities monitor their children and maintain strong positive relationships, just as well as mothers without disabilities. The lack of a residential father may lead women in mother-only families to experience additional barriers to providing a supportive family environment. However, the mothers with disabilities in these households do as well as mothers without disabilities. These mothers may be the only parent figures, making it increasingly important for them to overcome limitations which impede their ability to provide developmental care. Families in which children have disabilities may have somewhat higher rates of marital dissolution than other families, resulting in a higher percentage of children with disabilities in mother-headed households. The presence of a father with a disability is associated with fewer positive family routines, and a reduction in mothers’ monitoring of their children, probably due to the need for mothers to divert care-giving resources from their children to their male partner. Paternal disability has little impact on fathers’ monitoring or relationship with their children in two-parent households. Furthermore, paternal monitoring and relationships are largely unaffected when a mother figure has a disability, and may imply that father figures are less responsible than mothers for providing positive family dynamics. Data were collected from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, a nationally representative household-based sample of the non-institutional population of young persons in the United States which collects data on children from 10 to 16 years of age. Tables, references