Stresses as Perceived by Children with Physical Disabilities and Their Mothers

Stresses as Perceived by Children with Physical Disabilities and their Mothers One task of professionals working with children who have physical disabilities is to assist mothers in helping their children manage the physical, social, academic, and emotional stresses of everyday life. Central requirements for that task are knowledge of the kind, frequency, and degree of stresses that children with physical disabilities repprt they experience; mothers' identifications of the stresses they believe the children experience; and information as to the congruence between the children's reports and their mothers' beliefs. Although Meyerson (1955), Wright (1983), and Kerr (1986) have made theoretical statements about the conditions under which people with physical disabilities may experience stress, we have found little systematic documentation or empirical data that identify the stresses preceived by children who have physical limitations, inquire about the beliefs of their mothers about what stresses their children, or show that the two sets of perceptions are related. The present study represents a beginning effort to address those questions. Method Participants Letters inviting mothers and children to participate in this project were sent to all families (N=40) who had a child enrolled in a program for students with hearing impairments or orthopedic handicaps of two local school districts in Arizona. Of the 23 dyads who volunteerd, 3 dyads were eliminated because the interviewer could not establish rapport with 2 children, and was unable to communicate with 1 child. The remaining 20 mothers and children participated in the study. Because they volunteered so readily, we believe they were serious, conscientious respondents, likely to be observant, sensitive, and accurate reporters of their experiences and perceptions. The children, 8 t 15 years old, all tested at average or above average levels of intelligence in their school's psychological evaluations. Eight had cerebral palsy, three had spina bifida, three had other forms of paralysis, five had moderate or profound hearing impairment, and one had both cerebral palsy and a hearing impairment. Eleven children were nonambulatory, and nine had slow or labored speech associated with cerebral plasy or hearing loss. Special pains were taken to ensure that child participants understood the task and that the interviewer understood their responses. Of the primary caregivers, seventeen were natural mothers, two were grandmothers, and one a stepmother. Procedure Interviews. Each mother and each child of a dyad was interviewed separately but simultaneously in different rooms of their home by two interviewers. One interviewer talked with all the mothers; another interviewer, a Ph.D. candidate in Educational Psychology, interviewed all the children. Both had previous interviewing experience; and the latter, in particular, had extensive professional experience in communicating with children who had speech impairments. They followed a planned and practiced procedure as follows: After rapport had been established, each child was asked to name verbally "ten things that upset you, concern you, or that you fear the most. " The interviewer wrote each named stress above a 7-point Likert-type scale. Children who could not think of 10 stresses were urged to name as may as they could. After describing up to 10 stresses, the child was shown the 7-point scale for each stress the child had named, and asked to tell the interviewer how much stress each item caused. Point 1 meant upsets me very little; Point 4 signified upsets me sometimes; and Point 7 indicated very, very upsetting. Each mother, after initial informal conversation, was asked to name to 1 0 things she believed were sources of upset, concern, or fear to her child. After enumerating the stresses to the interviewer who wrote each one above a 7-point scale, the mother rated how much stress she though the child experienced from each problem she listed. …