Understanding the positive, as well as the negative, impact of a child with an intellectual disability will lead to a more balanced view of families and disability, say researchers from the University of California.

It is only within the past decade or two that researchers have considered the “positive impact of the child” worthy of empirical study, say Jan Blacher and Bruce L.Baker.

By contrast, for over half a century, published research has been focused on negative impacts of children with mental retardation on their families. Although a more balanced view of families and disability is certainly a conceptual step forward, there is still little well-controlled research on positive impact.

They conclude that parents are much more likely to report a positive impact if their children don’t have significant behavior problems. (But isn’t that also true for families in which the children don’t have a disability?)

This entry was posted on Friday, September 28th, 2007 at 1:05 pm and is filed under families, parents. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post