Demographic and Parental Factors Associated With Developmental Outcomes in Children With Intellectual Disabilities

Abstract

The aim of the study was to examine the relation between demographic variables, parental characteristics, and cognitive, language and motor skills development in children with intellectual disabilities (ID). A sample of 89 children with ID, aged 20–47 months, completed the Bayley Scales of Infant Development to measure cognitive, motor, and linguistic development. Parents were administered questionnaires about demographic information and parental anxiety, depression, parental stress, conjugality and familial functioning. Parenting behaviors (affection, responsiveness, encouragement, and teaching) were observed using the Spanish version of PICCOLO (Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes). A bivariate analysis showed that cognitive development in infants was significantly related to the mother’s and father’s responsiveness, and to the father’s teaching scores. Infant language development was related to a variety of maternal factors (educational level, anxiety, depression, maternal responsiveness) and to the father’s teaching scores. None of the factors were statistically related to child motor development. A multivariate regression analysis indicated that children’s cognitive development can be predicted by a linear combination of maternal responsiveness and paternal teaching scores. Language development can be predicted by a linear combination of maternal anxiety and responsiveness, and paternal teaching scores. The present study provides evidence of the importance of paternal involvement for cognitive and language development in children with intellectual disabilities, and contributes to the increasing literature about fathering. Gaining knowledge about parental contributions to children’s development is relevant for improving positive parenting in early intervention programs.

Parenting behaviors of mothers and fathers of young children with intellectual disability evaluated in a natural context

“…Our findings in relation to child age and mothers' and fathers' PICCOLO scores only showed a statistically significant positive correlation between child age and scores for the Teaching domain, in mothers, meaning that mothers' teaching behaviors were more frequently observed with older children. These results corroborate those of earlier research on mothers in the general population [17] and mothers with children with a disability [11]. However, none of the fathers' parenting domains was significantly related to child age.…”

“…We strongly believe that the information on behaviors identified by the PICCOLO could help guide professionals' intervention plans, and also that the Teaching domain is one of the aspects that should be emphasized in young children with IDs and their families when following family capacity-building practices [110]. The PICCOLO has been used with children with identified disabilities such as ID or Autism Spectrum Disorder in large samples in the US [11], Spain [12], Saudi Arabia [111] and Germany and Switzerland [36]. These studies have demonstrated this checklist's strong reliability and predictive validity for families with children with a disability; indeed, in two of these studies the early parenting behaviors measured with the PICCOLO predicted cognitive and language outcomes in children with disabilities [11,12].…”

“…A responsive home environment that includes good parenting and positive parent-child interactions is predictive of good development outcomes in normally developing children [1][2][3][4][5][6]. These parent characteristics may also predict better outcomes for children with a disability [7][8][9][10][11][12].…”

“…For families with a child with a disability, good parenting and positive parent-child interactions may constitute a real challenge. In comparison with typically developing children, children with IDs may provide less salient cues, be less responsive or have behavioral problems [11]; they may also show less emotional expressiveness, difficulties in joint attention, difficulties in language and communication, and behavioral problems, all of which may hinder the establishment of good interaction patterns [10,20,21].…”

Pre and postnatal characteristics of children and adolescents with intellectual disability

“…Postnatal factors include traumatic brain injury, infections, convulsive diseases and exposure to neurotoxins, such as lead and mercury 2 . According to previous studies, another variable that is associated with ID is sex; boys have a higher prevalence of ID when compared togirls 5,10,11 . This is due to increased occurrence of X chromosomal mutations12.…”