‘We want to be parents like everybody else’: stories of parents with learning disabilities

Abstract

Objectives

This project represents a unique collaboration between creative and research processes using an inclusive qualitative methodology.

Method

Semi-structured interviews with five mothers and three fathers with learning disabilities were led by learning disabled researchers, and thematic analysis conducted with input from people with learning disabilities.

Results

Five main themes are presented; (1) subjective experiences of becoming parents, (2) perceptions that other people assume people with learning disabilities are incompetent parents, resulting in a need to prove worthiness, (3) experiences of services, (4) overcoming ‘knock-backs’ and (5) support for the rights of other parents. An additional subgroup analysis is presented: fathers feel ‘left out’.

Conclusion

Parents felt criticized by others, who they felt questioned their competence as parents unfairly by comparison to those without learning disabilities. The collaboration between academic research and an inclusive theater group allowed dissemination of parents’ stories to wider public, and professional, audiences through creative performances.

Keywords:

• parents with intellectual disabilities
• parents with learning disabilities
• qualitative research
• thematic analysis
• inclusive research

Notes

1. Also known as intellectual disabilities, but the term ‘learning disabilities’ (or occasionally ‘learning disabled’) is used here and throughout as the term favoured by the people with learning disabilities involved in this study.