DEVELOPMENTALLY DISABLED ADULTS: BLACK &WHITE FAMILIES

Boston College, Chestnut Hill MA

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Abstract

DESCRIPTION: This research proposes a cross-sectional examination of the well-being of African-American and White parents and their adult developmentally disabled children. Guided by theories of family stress, three models are proposed: one focusing on parent s psychological well-being, one predicting the well-being of the adult developmentally disabled child, and one explaining the link between parent s well-being and child's well-being. The central feature of the model which links parent and child well-being is the nature of the parent-child relationship. The specific aims of the four-year study are to: 1) Explore the effects which developmentally disabled adult children have on the psychological well-being of their aging mothers; 2) Test a model in which stressors related to the adult child, competing role demands, personal resources, social resources, the quality and extent of exchange characterizing the mother-child relationship, and perceptions combine to predict mother s well-being; 3) Identify the ways in which personal resources, the mother-child relationship, and social resources of the adult child predict child s well-being; 4) Examine the nature of the interpersonal relationships which exist between developmentally disabled adult children and their aging mothers, and document the ways in which these relationships link the well-being of mother and child to one another; 5) Assess the moderating effects which race has on the relationships between stressors, resources, perceptions, mother-child relationship, and well-being of mother and adult child; 6) Contrast the effects that living with a developmentally disabled adult child has on the psychological well-being of their fathers with the effects that it has on their mothers; and 7) Test a model in which stressors related to the adult child, competing role demands in the father s life, personal resources, social resources, the quality and extent of exchange characterizing the father-child relationship, and father s perceptions of the situation vis-a-vis the child combine to predict father s well-being.