Families of children with disabilities: normative data and other considerations on parenting stress. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education 12

The parenting stress of families who have a child with a disability is an area receiving considerable research. The present study used a family strengths or "normality " perspective to investigate three issues regarding parent-related and child-related parenting stress, as measured by the Parent-ing Stress Index (PSI) (Abidin, 1990). A large sample (n- 725) of families who had a young child with disabilities participated. A comparison of parent-related and child-related parenting stress between the sample of families with a child with disabilities and the PSI normative sample was conducted. The distribution of PSI scores for the sample of families of children with disabilities was examined for statistical normality, and nor-mative data for these families were presented. An item analysis was con-ducted on child-related parenting stress to examine issues regarding its construct validity for families of children with disabilities. Issues regard-ing the use of stress measures and to the construct of child-related stress as these impact on early intervention activities are discussed. The stress on parents of having a child with disabilities has been investigated during the latter half of the century with a variety of research designs and instruments. Byrne and Cunningham (1985) delineated three assumptions that have guided stress research on families who have a child with disabilities. The first assumption adopts the pathological approach. This assumed that the presence of a child with disabilities in the family resulted in high parental stress and con-comitant dysfunction. During the 1980s, other researchers also note