Solís-Cámara RP, Díaz RM, Bolívar RE, García AN

Language: Spanish
References: 15
Page: 51-58
PDF size: 364.65 Kb.

ABSTRACT

In this study, the term children with special needs is used to refer to children who comprise a population at risk for various medical and psychological disorders. Studies of parenting practices compare families with children with special needs not sharing a specific disability to parents of average children. Moreover, studies usually compare white middle class mother-child pairs. It is acknowledged that too much about these families is unknown, particularly with Latinamerican families. Therefore, research on parenting children with special needs is essential. A logical starting point would be to test appropriate assessment materials for this population. The present study analyzes the usefulness of an instrument, the ECMP, developed to assess parenting of young children. The main concern relates to how mothers and fathers of children with special needs differ from parents of average children on discipline and nurturing practices as well as on developmental expectations.
Research has suggested that parents perceptions of their children’s behavior as problematic may increase the distress of parents. This study also examines mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of child deviance. We administered to parents a health scale for children (ESN) as a measure of children’s psychosocial adjustment. We wanted to identify first mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of their child deviant behaviors; and, secondly, we wanted to know if such perceptions were related to developmental expectations and parenting practices.
The study sample included 166 families with at least one child between the ages of 12 and 56 months (44 boys, 36 girls). Families with a child with special needs (FNES) included 80 mothers and 80 fathers. Of the children’s sample, 6.2% had cerebral palsy, 16.2% psychomotor retardation, 6.2% Down syndrome, 11.2% brain damage, 8.7% language handicapped, 8.7% respiratory disorders, 5% other syndromes, 27.5% multiple diagnosis, and 15% had no specific disorder. Families with an average child (FNOR) were drawn from the normative population of the ECMP. This sample included 86 fathers and 86 mothers; there were 46 boys and 40 girls. Both samples completed a socio-cultural questionnaire and the ECMP. FNES also completed the ESN. MANOVAs were conducted for the three ECMP scales, between mothers and fathers and child’s sex for FNOR and also for FNES. There were no main effects or interactions. To determine if significant differences existed by children’s age two separate twoway (scales x age) MANOVA were conducted. ANOVAs were significant for expectations and discipline scores of FNOR. There was an increase of expectations with child’s age; parents’ expectations of 1-, 2-, and 3-year-old children differed significantly. For the discipline scale, parents of 1-year-olds differed significantly from the parents of 1-, 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children. For FNES, ANOVAs were also significant for expectations and discipline. For both scales, the parents of 1-year-olds differed from the parents of 2-, 3-, and 4-year-old children.
Comparisons between families indicated a significant effect for group and gender. ANOVAs indicated that FNOR had higher expectations and discipline scores than FNES. The gender effect was found for nurturing scores; mothers scored higher than fathers. A significant interaction effect for the expectations scale was found. FNOR housewives scored higher than both FNOR and FNES employees, and also than FNES housewives. FNOR mothers with a professional occupation also had higher expectations than FNES housewives. For fathers no significant effects were found.
A cut-off score of five points was suggested by the authors of the ESN as the criterion to identify psychosocially disadvantaged children. Applying this criterion to the scores of FNES allowed us to identify three groups of parents: those who perceived their child as functional (NES-F: < 5 points, 21%), or dysfunctional (NES-D: => 5, 51%), and those whose spouse showed no agreement on the health status of the child (NES-NC, 28%). A three-way MANOVA (scales X group X gender) indicated a main effect for group. ANOVAs were significant for expectations, nurturing and the ESN. For the expectations scale, post-hoc tests indicated NES-D families scored lower than NES-F families, and these last families scored higher than NES-NC families; for the nurturing scale, NES-D families scored lower than NES-F, and NES-NC families; for the ESN scale, NES-F families scored lower than the other two groups. Analyses of the socio-cultural variablesof these FNES groups indicated significant effects for expectations, discipline, and nurturing. For each scale, scores were higher for families with a single child compared with families with more than one child. Also when both mother and father took care of the child, their reported expectations and nurturing were higher than when the mother was the sole responsible of the child. To determine if significant differences existed between FNES groups and FNOR in regard to their ratings of parenting, a twoway MANOVA (scale X groups: NES-F, NES-D, NES-NC, FNOR) was conducted. Higher scores were found for the three ECMP scales for FNOR than for NES-D.
Pearson product-moment correlations were computed from the mothers´ and fathers´ scores on the ECMP and the ESN. A different pattern of significant relationships were found between the scores by groups: FNOR and NES-D mothers, and FNOR and NES-D fathers. A stepwise discriminant analysis indicated that the expectations scale discriminated FNOR and FNES. Separated analyses for mothers and fathers from FNOR and NES-D indicated a different picture. For mothers, the expectations scale and also this scale plus the discipline one discriminated between them. For fathers, both expectations and nurturing scales discriminated between them. In the groups of mothers, 65 out of 86 (76%) FNOR children were correctly classified and 28 out of 41 (68%) NES-D children were correctly predicted. In the groups of fathers, 64 out of 86 (77%) FNOR children were correctly classified and 30 out of 41 (73%) NES-D children were correctly predicted.
The present study found similar parenting practices and developmental expectations within families. Developmental expectations increased with child’s age for FNOR but not for FNES; this result may reflect that the child’s inability could become more evident as he/she gets older forcing parents to adjust their expectations to the child’s actual capacity. Comparisons between families indicated that FNOR had significantly higher developmental expectations and discipline scores than FNES. Previous comparisons of Mexican mothers and fathers have indicated that discipline and nurturing scores are higher for mothers than for fathers from different families; in the present study, a similar gender effect was found only for nurturing between married couples.
The children with special needs were rated by their parents as having lower or higher psychosocial problems. The higher scores of NES-D families may reflect the parents’ sensitivity to their children’s health conditions and a tendency to presume their children may be experiencing social problems. Parents may compensate for this perception by lowering their developmental expectations and discipline practices. Another interpretation of the lower expectation scores may be that some of the ECMP items were specifically related to the child’s inability and were truly beyond the child’s capacity. The present study also found that nurturing practices differ between FNOR and NES-D. This result and the reported correlations suggest that lower child functional ability is associated with less nurturing practices. In general, these results, as well as the discriminant analyses, indicate that comparisons of parenting practices between these families are strongly influenced by parents´ perceptions of their child’s deviant behaviors.
This research expands the presently limited knowledge base regarding the child with special needs in the context of the family. The data support the usefulness of the assessment tools for psychologists working with families with young children. There are several limitations of the study that should be noted. First, the heterogeneous disabilities of the children, and secondly, the small samples by children’s age, and by socio-cultural variables. Consequently, our findings and conclusions require additional research to examine child and parent factors through the use of more specific criteria.

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