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In children with Down Syndrome (DS), as in other groups of special needs children, development depends crucially on the degree to which parents provide appropriate stimulation and effective support. The majority of recent studies investigating interactions between parents and children with DS have been conducted on mothers.
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... effects or interactions associated with child gender emerged. Table 1 shows means and standard deviations for frequencies and durations, as well as for summary indices, of exploratory and symbolic activity for child solitary play and collaborative play and for father collaborative play. Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations for the EAS. ...Similar publications
In this study, the authors examined the extent to which maternal and paternal parenting styles, cognitions, and behaviors were associated with young girls' and boys' more compassionate (prototypically feminine) and more agentic (prototypically masculine) prosocial behaviors with peers. Parents of 133 preschool-aged children reported on their author...
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... On the other hand, a study by Laws, Bishop, and Adams [89] found that children with DS performed better in language comprehension and sentence production, while children with ASD performed better in passive vocabulary and receptive language in general. Similarly, de Falco et al. [90] found that, while children with DS had better pragmatic and linguistic comprehension skills, the sentence production and expressive language of children with ASD showed a higher performance, in line with the findings of this research. Therefore, the current findings suggest an influence of the severity of prototypical symptomatology in ASD on the relative receptive and expressive language abilities [82,83,91]. ...
This research aims to compare the developmental profiles of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and children with Down Syndrome (DS) between the ages of 3 and 6 years. The study examines whether these developmental disorders share common developmental milestones or exhibit distinctive characteristics. A total of 43 children, 23 with DS and 20 with ASD, participated in the study. Cognitive and language skills were assessed using standardized tools, including the Battelle Developmental Inventory, Reynell Developmental Language Scales III, and NEPSY-II battery. The results indicated that children with ASD outperformed children with DS in the areas of fine motor skills, gross motor skills, and communication. Additionally, children with ASD demonstrated higher scores in language comprehension and expressive language, compared to children with DS. Significant correlations were found between motor skills and communication abilities. Neuropsychological evaluations revealed significant differences between the two groups in various tasks, such as the comprehension of instructions, body part naming and identification, and recognition of emotions. These findings contribute to our understanding of the similarities and differences between ASD and DS, shedding light on the dissociation between cognition and language and its impact on adaptive functioning in these populations.
... Studies showed that mothers of children with ASD have higher stress levels (Estes et al. 2009). Considering the stress and difficult processes experienced by the mothers of babies with ASD, it is obvious that fathers should support the development of their children by playing games as much as the participation of mothers (Caneva & Venuti, 1998;Falco et al., 2008;Anderson et al., 2013). Recently, with the increasing involvement of fathers in the care of their babies, studies on the communication, interaction, and emotional accessibility of babies with their fathers have increased (Day & Lamb, 2004;Liu, 2019). ...
In this study, we aimed to assess the interactions of mothers and fathers with their children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and compare the fathers and mothers in terms of emotional availability. Children, who applied to the Infant Mental Health Unit between January 2019-March 2021 and diagnosed with ASD, and their parents without any clinical diagnosis were included. The study was conducted with a total of 64 infants, 41 (64.1%) boys and 23 (35.9%) girls aged 7-60 months. According to the results obtained, it was determined that the mothers were more sensitive and better in structuring the content of play compared with the fathers. It was noted that the fathers were more hostile than the mothers. The results obtained were discussed in the literature.
... When all this information is evaluated, it is possible to say that relatively little is known about fathers' experiences, needs, and involvement in raising a child with developmental disabilities (MacDonald & Hastings, 2010a). Despite all this, it is stated that paternal involvement in children with special needs (SN) is similar to that in typically developing children (Dyer et al., 2009) and, although the number of studies is limited, they have a positive effect on children with SN (Bagner, 2013;De Falco et al., 2008;Louis & Kumar, 2015). ...
We aimed to investigate the relationship between maternal gatekeeping and father involvement in caring for and supporting children with special needs aged between 3 and 6 years (n = 255 couples). Data were collected using the Maternal Gatekeeping Scale-Mother Form and the Father Involvement Scale. We found that maternal gatekeeping and father involvement differed according to the child's gender and diagnosis but did not differ according to the child's age. In addition, we determined that father involvement significantly and negatively correlated to mothers' discouraging behaviors but significantly and positively correlated to mothers' encouraging behaviors.
... Accordingly, some studies have demonstrated that fathers' involvement in caring for children with disabilities reduced mothers' depressive symptoms, stress levels, and caregiving burden (Laxman et al., 2015;Simmerman et al., 2001). Moreover, other studies have shown that fathers' participation in parenting programs was associated with positive outcomes on their child's behavioral problems and communication skills (Bagner, 2013;de Falco et al., 2008;Elder et al., 2011;Lundahl et al., 2008). Concerning the relevance of fathers' involvement in family relationships, most studies focused on the father-mother subsystem. ...
The aim of this study was to explore father’s involvement in rearing a child with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities (PIMD). In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven fathers in Japan, and the data were analyzed using a qualitative inductive method. The relationship between the parents, in the context of childrearing, influenced father’s involvement with their child with PIMD. Fathers improved their self-confidence in childrearing by discussing and sharing about their child’s conditions and caregiving approaches with their spouse. Moreover, fathers’ experience of being acknowledged and entrusted by their spouse with childrearing motivated and enhanced their involvement. On the contrary, fathers struggled with concerns regarding their family’s future, the balance between childrearing and work, and their own health status. The current findings contribute to nurses’ understanding of father’s involvement in childrearing a child with PIMD and the development of support focusing on the parental dyadic relationship and coparenting behavior.
... The role of the mother as mediator in a home environment is clearly the main role investigated (Granone et al., 2021;Schertz & Odom, 2007;Ugwuanyi et al., 2021;Tzuriel & Shomron, 2018;Tzuriel & Hanuka-Levy, 2019), followed by the siblings (Tzuriel & Hanuka-Levy, 2014, 2019. This is in agreement with literature that shows how, despite the fact that both parents may be equivalently involved in childrearing (Parke 2002), the majority of studies investigating interactions between parents and children with disabilities have been conducted with mothers (De Falco et al., 2008). In the studies that analyse mothers' mediation strategies, some main elements can be highlighted. ...
... A question, however, could be what the influence on the child's cognitive development might be if the father's mediational intervention is inserted in addition to that of the mother. There is a lack of studies that focus on the paternal role as mediator, despite such a role being observed in non-mediating approaches and such a role being considered crucial (De Falco et al., 2008). ...
The purpose of this literature review is to identify patterns and to discuss
key perspectives from empirical studies published from 2000 until 2021 that
explore mediated learning strategies in families with children with disabilities.
An inductive thematic analysis resulted in four key perspectives: (1) mediator’s
gender, attitudes, and knowledge, (2) home environment and
cultural considerations, (3) activities and evaluation tools, and (4) mediation
with toddlers for enhancing language development. Overall, this study revealed
(1) a lack of peer-reviewed articles that discuss, investigate, examine,
or debate the Mediated Learning Experience with children with disabilities
in home environments; (2) a limited emphasis on the father’s role as mediator;
(3) the need for considering cultural aspects, and (4) the importance of
using mediation in free play and everyday situations. Based on the findings,
new lines of future research are suggested.
... Moreover, spousal support moderated the relationship between the child's externalising behaviours and paternal psychological symptoms. Thus, given the increasingly active role of fathers in the family and the unique benefit of father involvement on children's social-emotional development (Clarke-Stewart 1980;Gottman et al. 1997;Pancsofar & Vernon-Feagans 2006;de Falco et al. 2008), it is valuable to study how spousal support relates to paternal psychological symptoms when controlling for child behaviour problems. ...
Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience high levels of stress related to their children's symptoms and comorbid behavior problems. Adaptive parental coping in response to child-related stressors is proposed to serve a buffering function, and yet, little research has examined whether coping actually moderates associations between child factors and parent outcomes in this population. The few studies to do so have focused on parent well-being as the primary outcome and have not considered the degree to which child-related stressors may affect parenting and contribute to maladaptive transactional parent-child processes over time. The present study tested whether adaptive parental coping was associated with reduced associations between higher levels of child ASD symptoms and comorbid externalizing problems and poorer quality parent reactions to child negative emotions in 63 families of children with ASD. Parents reported on their children's externalizing problems, their own coping behavior, and their reactions to their children's negative emotions, and child ASD symptoms were measured through direct testing. Adaptive coping-primarily active planning-moderated the association between children's behavior problems and supportive parent reactions such that parents of children with more externalizing problems reported less supportive reactions, but only when adaptive coping was low. Child ASD symptoms did not significantly relate to parent reactions, and coping did not moderate these associations. This cross-sectional study is the first to identify parental coping as a potential protective factor for parenting behavior in families of children with ASD and comorbid behavior problems. Implications for future longitudinal research are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
... Authors of 16 studies reported that the mother was the sole respondent for all data [50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65]. In one study [66], fathers were the only respondents. Only two studies gathered data directly from the person with DS [26,67]. ...
... Family Resources and Children's Independence. The most frequently studied relationship between family and child variables was between family resources and children's personal development (n = 20, 47%), with most of these examining the relationship between individual family resources and children's cognitive functioning [33,39,48,53,56,58,62,63,66]. For example, Evans and Uljarević [39] investigated the possible influence of parental education on children's IQ. ...
... For example, Evans and Uljarević [39] investigated the possible influence of parental education on children's IQ. The relationship between individual family member resources and children's social competence was addressed in seven studies [33,41,47,57,58,60,66]. For example, Karaaslan, and Mahoney [57] examined the relationship between parental interactive styles (e.g., responsivity, sensitivity) and social engagement in children with DS. ...
The purpose of this scoping review was to identify the family and child quality of life variables that have been studied in relation to one another in children with Down syndrome, the frequency with which different relationships have been studied, and the extent to which family variables were the focus of the research aims. A literature search was conducted to find studies published between January 2007 and June 2018. The initial search yielded 2314 studies; of these, 43 were selected for a final review. Researchers most often addressed family resources and family problem-solving and coping concerning child personal development and physical well-being. Little attention to child emotional well-being was observed, with none considering family appraisal of child emotional well-being. The relationship between family variables and child QoL rarely was the primary focus of the study. Methodologically, most reviewed studies used cross-sectional designs, were conducted in North America and based on maternal report. From future research considering the issues found in this review, healthcare providers can obtain an in-depth understanding of relationshipsbetween children and family variables.
... Among them, a growing body of evidence indicates that emotional availability (EA) represents a key determinant for positive parent-child interactions [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17]. Based on attachment theory [18] integrated with Emde's [19] perspective on emotions, EA denotes the quality of emotional exchanges between parents and their children with focus on their reciprocal accessibility and ability to read and respond appropriately to one another's communications [20][21][22][23]. ...
... Empirical evidence has shown that problems in parent-child interactions are strictly associated with the development of child psychopathology [21][22][23][24][25]. In preschool years, child developmental tasks center around the acquisition of physical and emotional independence and autonomy [26]. ...
The present study aims to investigate the outcomes of the Focal Play Therapy with Children and Parents (FPT-CP) in terms of parent–therapist alliance, parent–child interactions, and parenting stress. Thirty parental couples (N = 60; 30 mothers and 30 fathers) and their children presenting behavioral, evacuation and eating disorders took part to the study. Through a multi-method longitudinal approach, data were collected at two time points (first and seventh sessions) marking the first phase of the intervention specifically aimed to build the alliance with parents, a crucial variable for the remission of the child’s symptoms (and to the assessment of the child’s symptoms within family dynamics.) Therapeutic alliance was assessed by the Working Alliance Inventory by therapists and parents. Parent–child interactions and parenting stress were evaluated using the Emotional Availability Scales and the Parenting Stress Index, respectively. Results showed that a positive parent–therapist alliance was developed and maintained during the first seven sessions. Furthermore, parent–child interactions significantly improved on both parents’ and child’s dimensions. However, parenting stress levels remained unchanged between the two time points. The findings should enrich scientific knowledge about the role of parental engagement in preschool child-focused treatments as to better inform practice and improve the quality of care for children and their families.
... In relation to father play, a study carried out with fathers of children with ID [87] found it to be associated with more child exploration and symbolic play; in addition, fathers with high emotional availability exhibited more symbolic and less exploratory play than their peers with lower emotional availability. ...
The aims of this study were to analyze the interactions of mothers and fathers with their children with intellectual disabilities, focusing on certain parental behaviors previously identified as promoting child development, and to explore the relations between parenting and some sociodemographic variables. A sample of 87 pairs of mothers and fathers of the same children were recruited from Early Intervention Centers. The children (58 male and 29 female) were aged 20-47 months. Most of the families (92%) were from the province of Barcelona (Spain), and the remaining 8% were from the other provinces of Catalonia (Spain). Parenting behaviors, divided into four domains (Affection, Responsiveness, Encouragement, and Teaching) were assessed from self-recorded videotapes, in accordance with the validated Spanish version of the PICCOLO (Parenting Interactions with Children: Checklist of Observations Linked to Outcomes). Parents were administered a sociodemographic questionnaire. The results revealed strong similarities between mothers' and fathers' parental behaviors. Mothers and fathers were more likely to engage in affectionate behavior than in teaching behavior. Only maternal teaching presented a significant positive relation to the child's age. With respect to the child's gender, no differences were observed in mothers' parenting. Conversely , fathers scored significantly higher in Responsiveness, Encouragement and Teaching (and had higher total parenting scores) when interacting with boys. The severity of the child's ID had a statistically significant effect only on fathers' Teaching, which showed lower mean scores in the severe ID group than in the moderate and mild ID groups. Teaching also presented a significant positive relation to mother's age, but father's age was not related to any parenting domain. Mothers with a higher educational level scored significantly higher in Encouragement and Teaching, and the fathers' educational level was not significantly related to any parenting domain. Mothers' and fathers' Teaching, and fathers' Responsiveness, Encouragement and total parenting scores, presented a significant positive relation to family income. Finally, mothers spent more time in childcare activities than fathers, particularly on workdays. Our main conclusion is that mothers and fathers show very similar strengths and weaknesses when interacting with their children with intellectual disabilities during play.
... Актуализируются потребности отцов в нахождении ресурсов, позволяющих им справляться с трудной ситуацией и поддерживать своих детей с особенностями развития, в частности детей с синдромом Дауна [DeFalco et al., 2008;Docherty, Dimond, 2018]. Несмотря на повышение отцовского участия в уходе за детьми в последнее время, поддержка отцов чаще рассматривается как «вторичная», и пока мало известно о ее характере, разнообразии и воздействии на благополучие детей-инвалидов и семьи в целом, предпринимаются лишь отдельные попытки типологизации участия отцов и описания более полной картины внутрисемейного взаимодействия [West, Honey, 2016]. ...
Статья представляет собой анализ зарубежных исследований отцовства, посвященных социальным проблемам и потребностям отцов, препятствиям в становлении идентичности вовлеченного отца и реализации данной модели на практике, направлениям социальной поддержки отцов. Ее актуальность обусловлена недостатком теоретических знаний о феномене отцовства, отсутствием обзорных работ, в которых бы обобщался накопленный опыт исследований поддержки отцовства, развития профилактических мер, программ и социальных услуг, учитывающих потребности и ресурсы разных групп отцов, практически полным отсутствием российских данных об отцах, относящихся к уязвимым группам, переживающим жизненные трудности. Рассматриваются работы, в фокусе которых отцы социально уязвимых групп: несовершеннолетние, одинокие, отчимы, имеющие детей с ограниченными возможностями здоровья, разведенные, транснациональные мигранты, иммигранты, с зависимым поведением, правонарушители, заключенные, склонные к домашнему насилию, гомосексуалы и др. Представлены характеристики отцов и их семей, негативно или позитивно влияющие на реализацию отцовской роли. Сделан вывод о том, что дефицит личностных, социальных, финансовых, информационных ресурсов препятствует становлению отцовской роли и затрудняет реализацию отцовского потенциала. Выделены культурные, информационные, экономические, структурные, институциональные барьеры, препятствующие вовлечению отцов в воспитание детей. Показано, что представленные в работах зарубежных авторов программы поддержки отцовства можно объединить в следующие группы: адресованные отцам и ближайшему окружению, социальные услуги и меры структурной поддержки отцов, информационные и онлайн-программы. Установлено, что ключевой задачей специалистов при работе с целевой группой отцов является создание «заботливой» маскулинности и позитивной идентичности ответственного отца: это способствует не только усилению родительской самоэффективности, развитию родительских навыков, но и преодолению отцами жизненных трудностей.
Благодарность. Исследование выполнено при финансовой поддержке РФФИ в рамках научного проекта №19-011-00543.
