The social environment and the adaptation of mothers of physically handicapped children.

Evaluated relationships between social environmental characteristics and adaptation in 50 mothers of congenitally physically handicapped 6- to 11-year-old children. Mothers reported on utilitarian resources, child adjustment, psychosocial family resources, service utilization, and three dimensions of adaptation. Analyses of the concurrent correlational design indicated significant proportions of the variance in mental and social functioning were explained by features of the social environment. Mother's physical health could not be significantly predicted. Consistently strong contributions were made by psychosocial family resources in all adaptation domains.

Family resources as resistance factors for psychological maladjustment in chronically ill and handicapped children.

The hypothesis that their psychological adjustment is related in part to resources present in their families was investigated in 153 children, age 4-16, who had one of five chronic physical disorders: juvenile diabetes, juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, chronic obesity, spina bifida, or cerebral palsy. Their mothers completed standardized psychometric instruments to measure specific dimensions of family psychological and utilitarian resources and of child adjustment. Variation in children's psychological adjustment was related both to their psychological and utilitarian family resources. Psychological family resources contributed uniquely to the prediction of adjustment beyond that provided by utilitarian family resources. These results are discussed as having implications for the identification of chronically ill and handicapped children at risk for adjustment difficulties.

Disability parameters, chronic strain, and adaptation of physically handicapped children and their mothers.

Investigated the contribution of disability parameters and chronic disability-related strain to the adaptation of 50 congenitally physically handicapped 6- to 11-year-old children and their mothers. Multiple dimensions of adaptation, disability status, and chronic disability-related strain were assessed with a variety of procedures. The mothers reported their children and themselves to display significantly worse adaptation than expected for a general sample. The adaptation of these children and their mothers, however, was not significantly related to the children's disability status nor the chronic strain thereto related. An exception was that the children's social functioning could be significantly explained by both of these factors. The inability to explain most dimensions of adaptation in the children and their mothers as it relates to the conceptual model guiding this research is discussed.