Young adults with severe intellectual disability: Culture, parent, and sibling impact

ABSTRACT

Background Having a child with intellectual disability impacts all family members, with both parents and siblings having to adjust. Negative impact on the typically developing sibling, specifically, has been shown to vary based on caregiving responsibilities and mothers’ stress level.

Method This study gathered information from 238 Latina and Anglo mothers of young adults with intellectual disability to explore sibling negative impact related to maternal stress, positive feelings about parenting, sibling diagnostic category, and cultural group.

Results Mothers experiencing more stress reported higher levels of sibling impact; mothers with more positive feelings about parenting reported lower levels of negative impact, with Latina mothers reporting higher levels of stress and positive feelings about parenting. Anglo mothers, however, were less likely to designate a sibling as a future caregiver.

Conclusions These findings suggest culture and diagnostic classification should be given more attention relative to their impact on typically developing siblings.

KEYWORDS:

• sibling impact and culture
• intellectual disability
• family relations

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to our staff, to the doctoral students who worked on this study, and to the families who participated in this longitudinal research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was based on the activities of the Collaborative Family Study [Grant Number 34879–1459] and the UC Riverside Families Project [Grant Number HD21324], supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.