INTELLECTUAL DISABILITIES: A COMPARISON BETWEEN
PARENTAL AND TEACHERS' REPORT AND THE RELATIONSHIP
TO PARENTAL STRESS
1 Beit Issie Shapiro, Israel ; 2 Hebrew University, Israel
Parents of children with intellectual disabilities (ID) report a higher
level of stress in comparison to parents of children with normative
development. Few studies have examined the connection between the
level of parental stress and the child's social skills, despite the fact
that the literature indicates that children with mild to moderate ID have
social difficulties. Both parents and teachers reported social skills in a
group of children with moderate to severe ID, and the degree of
agreement between their reports was compared with the level of
parental stress. The subjects were parents and teachers of 18 children
with moderate to severe ID, between the ages of 4.5- 12.5 years, who
are students in a school in Ra'anana. The parents and teachers
completed a checklist of social skills. In addition the parents
completed a parenting stress index. Findings indicate a negative
correlation between the child's social skills and the level of parental
stress. In addition, it was found that parent and teacher reports of
child's social skills differed in that teachers reported higher levels of
social skills than parents. A correlation was also found between
incompatible reports of a child's social skills between parent, and
teacher and higher parental stress. The results of this study
emphasize the importance of a holistic therapeutic approach that
involves the family, and developing a partnership between
professional and parents. The therapeutic team must consider
parents' stress as part of the therapeutic process. In order to achieve
a valid assessment of a child's functioning, the therapeutic team must
gather information from parents and teachers alike as they experience
the child in different contexts leading to differences in their perception
of the child.
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