Parental Stress and Coping in Families of Children With and Without Developmental Delays

Parents of children with developmental delays experience increased levels of parental stress, often related to the severity of their child’s behaviour. However, the experience of stress is dependent on how individuals perceive their situation and whether coping strategies (i.e., problem-focused, emotionfocused, and appraisalor perception-focused coping) are used to manage stress. Forty-six parents of preschool children with and without developmental delays participated in telephone interviews as part of a longitudinal study on school transition. Parents completed measures about their child’s behaviour, stress and use of coping strategies. Parents of children with developmental delays experienced greater levels of stress, and had children with higher maladaptive behaviour than children without delays. Despite differences in reported stress, parents of children with delays were using similar amounts and styles of coping as parents of children without delays. Future research should investigate the relationship between the various types of coping and their effect on reducing stress. Having a child with an intellectual disability can impose financial, social and physical stress on the family (Mak & Ho, 2007). Research has shown that caregivers of children with disabilities experience greater stress than caregivers of children without disabilities (Hassall, Rose, & McDonald, 2005). Similarly, Baker et al. (2003) have shown that parents of young children with developmental delays report experiencing greater stress than parents of children without delays. Although a number of factors can contribute to the increased level of stress experienced by caregivers of children with delays, severity of the child’s behaviour problems is often the strongest predictor of parental stress (Baker et al., 2003; Floyd & Gallagher, 1997; Hassall, Rose, & McDonald, 2005; Nachshen, Garcin, & Minnes, 2005). Moreover, it Vicki Lopez1,2, Tessen Clifford1,2 Patricia Minnes1,2 and Hélène Ouellette-Kuntz2,3 1 Department of Psychology, Queen's University 2 South Eastern Ontario Community University Research Alliance in Intellectual Disabilities 3 Department of Community Health and Epidemiology,