Perceived Parenting Styles Fail to Mediate Between Anxiety and Attachment Styles in Adult Siblings of Individuals with Developmental Disabilities.

Adult siblings of individuals with developmental disabilities often experience higher levels of anxiety than individuals in the general population. The present study tested whether perceived parenting could mediate the relationship between attachment styles and anxiety in the sibling group compared to a control group. Little association was found between perceived parenting and attachment styles or anxiety for the siblings but there were robust and expected findings for the control. Adult attachment-related-anxiety was a significant unique predictor of anxiety in the sibling group but there was no mediational role for perceived parenting. Conversely, the majority of parenting styles significantly mediated the relationship between attachment and anxiety in the control. Implications for the atypical findings in the sibling group are discussed.

Anxiety and depression symptomatology in adult siblings of individuals with different developmental disability diagnoses.

Factors predicting the emotional well-being of adult siblings of those with developmental disability (DD) remain under-researched. In this study adult siblings of individuals with Down's syndrome (DS), autism (ASD), Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) and those with DD but with unknown aetiology (DUA) were compared with each other and a closely-matched control group to ascertain if sibling disability type made a difference to anxiety and/or depression levels. Also considered was the interactive effect of gender, age, parental and sibling educational attainment levels, socio-economic status and birth order on anxiety and depression outcomes. With the exception of siblings of those with DS, adult siblings of those with ASD, PWS and DUA reported significantly higher levels of anxiety and depression than the control group. There were some predictive effects of the demographic variables upon anxiety and depression but none common to all disability types and no moderating effects of demographic factors were found. Consequently other solutions must be found as to why this important group of people have elevated rates of anxiety and depression in comparison to the general population.