Stress and Child Perceptions of Caregivers who have Children with Developmental Disabilities

Parents and guardians with children who have developmental disabilities face many difficulties when trying to navigate resources, accessing treatment, and providing ongoing care for their children. Parents who are included in their children's behavioral therapy are often provided training to extinguish or redirect unexpected behaviors demonstrated by their children. However, the delivery of therapy and supervision of the intervention by qualified professionals can vary greatly among local service providers as well as state and federal agencies. With no clear standards for intervention, the quality of service has the potential to decrease and the negative parent perspectives of services may increase, thus influencing their participation during therapy.;When parents are involved in their children's therapy, they are often required to follow through with recommendations in multiple environments. Challenging behaviors and stressful situations affect families in different ways. Early intervention for children with developmental disabilities focuses on the child and can leave the emotional wellbeing of the parent unchecked. Accessible resources need to be developed that assess parental stress and incorporate interventions into ongoing supervised treatment for parents.;The intent of this quantitative study was to examine the effects of stress on the quality of life, parenting skills, and mental health of caregivers who have children with developmental disabilities. In addition the intent of this study is to answer the following questions: (a) Does increased parent participation correlate with higher levels of stress? (b) Does increased caregiver participation correlate with negative perceptions of a difficult child? (c) Is there a relationship between the gap in time from child symptom onset to child diagnosis and higher level of caregiver stress and difficult child perceptions? (d) Is there a relationship between caregiver funding source and increased stress?;Moreover, this study aimed to contribute to the understanding of stress in caregivers of children who have developmental disabilities. Novel additions to the understanding of the manifestation of symptoms of stress will hopefully lead to further research and analysis and the development of therapeutic interventions. Stress can be a major health risk with lasting consequences and possible complications. In addition, this study will also contribute to the understanding of the parent child interaction and how parents with children who have developmental disabilities perceive their children and how parents cope with stress.