The health of parents with and without intellectual impairment in the UK.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the health and well-being of the 'hidden majority' of parents with mild intellectual disability (ID), who are less likely to be in contact with disability services. METHOD: We sought to add to knowledge in this area by examining the health and living conditions of parents with and without intellectual impairment in a large contemporary nationally representative sample of UK parents aged between 16 and 49 years old (n = 14 371). RESULTS: Our results indicated that, as expected, parents with intellectual impairment were at significantly greater risk than other parents of having poorer self-reported general, mental and physical health. They were also at significantly greater risk of experiencing higher rates of household socio-economic disadvantage and environmental adversities and lower rates of neighbourhood social capital and intergenerational support. Adjusting risk estimates to take account of between group differences in household socio-economic disadvantage eliminated statistically significant differences in health status between parents with and without intellectual impairment on all but one indicator (obesity). Further adjusting risk estimates to take account of between group differences in neighbourhood adversity, neighbourhood social capital and intergenerational support had minimal impact on the results. CONCLUSIONS: That controlling for between-group differences in exposure to socio-economic disadvantage largely eliminated evidence of poorer health among parents with intellectual impairment is consistent with the view that a significant proportion of the poorer health of people with IDs may be attributable to their poorer living conditions rather than biological factors associated with ID per se.

Mothers with intellectual impairment and their 9-month-old infants.

BACKGROUND: Few studies have utilised population-based data to examine the lives of families headed by parents with intellectual impairment. This study examined the health and social context of mothers with intellectual impairment compared with their peers without intellectual impairment, and the 9-month developmental outcomes of their infants. METHOD: Secondary analysis of the first wave of the United Kingdom's Millennium Cohort Study (MCS). Wave 1 data were collected when the child was 9 months of age and recorded in-depth information of maternal health, the social context in which the families live, and developmental outcomes of the infants. RESULTS: Of the 18 189 mothers, 74 (0.4%) were classified as mothers with intellectual impairment. The findings show evidence of widespread disadvantage in terms of social context and poorer self-reported physical health for mothers with intellectual impairment compared with their peers without intellectual impairment. Maternal mental health and the developmental outcomes of their 9-month infants were not markedly different between the two groups. CONCLUSIONS: The cross-sectional analyses used in this study shows the differences in the lives of mothers with intellectual impairment and their young infants compared with their peers. Longitudinal analyses across subsequent waves of the MCS will allow protective and risk factors in the early years that influence later developmental outcomes to be identified.

Understanding theory of mind in children who are deaf.

Research on theory of mind began in the context of determining whether chimpanzees are aware that individuals experience cognitive and emotional states. More recently, this research has involved various groups of children and various tasks, including the false belief task. Based almost exclusively on that paradigm, investigators have concluded that although "normal" hearing children develop theory of mind by age 5, children who are autistic or deaf do not do so until much later, perhaps not until their teenage years. The present study explored theory of mind by examining stories told by children who are deaf and hearing (age 9-15 years) for statements ascribing behaviour-relevant states of mind to themselves and others. Both groups produced such attributions, although there were reliable differences between them. Results are discussed in terms of the cognitive abilities assumed to underlie false belief and narrative paradigms and the implications of attributing theory of mind solely on the basis of performance on the false belief task.

Gender differences in cognitive abilities at 2 years in ELBW infants. Extremely low birth weight.

Gender differences in cognitive abilities exist for children born at term. For very preterm infants uncertainty exists regarding the presence and extent of such differences and their relationship to perinatal brain injury and neurological impairment. This study examined gender differences in cognitive abilities in a cohort of 336 extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants at 2 years corrected age. Infants were classified as at low or high perinatal risk at birth according to four perinatal risk factors. A subgroup of 33 neurologically impaired infants was identified. Outcome at 2 years was measured by the overall General Quotient (GQ) on the Griffiths scale and its five subscale scores. Female ELBW children were superior to male ELBW children by 4.1 GQ points (95% CI 1.0, 7.1). If the impaired subgroup was excluded, the difference in GQ was 3.2 points (95% CI 0.4, 5.6), and this difference was predominantly due to female infants being superior in the hearing and speech subscale (6.0 points, 95% CI 2.6, 9.5). These differences were relatively independent of perinatal risk status. Gender differences in the Griffiths GQ for ELBW infants are similar to expected differences for term infants and are unlikely to cause substantial bias in interpreting outcome studies for ELBW infants, unless these involve tests of specific cognitive abilities such as language.