Running head: PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 1
Mind-Mindedness and Stress in Parents of Children with Developmental Disorders
Kayleigh Turner
School of Behavioral Sciences, Liberty University
PSYC 525: Developmental Psychology
Dr. Jichan Kim
October 1, 2023
Author Note
I have no known conflict of interest to disclose.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to .
Email:
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 2
Abstract
Having a child with a developmental disorder can be extremely stressful for a parent. On the
other hand, being a parent to a child with these developmental disorders can also be something
exceptionally rewarding. The study discussed in this paper gave very informational insight as to
the mind-mindedness within parents of children with these developmental disorders along with
investigating the relation with parenting stress. While this article found beneficial information, it
is concluded that there needs to be more studies to further examine the correlation between
mind-mindedness in parents of children with developmental disorders and positive child
outcomes found in typically developing children.
Keywords: developmental disorders, mind-mindedness, parenting stress
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 3
Mind-Mindedness and Stress in Parents of Children with Developmental Disorders
It can be extremely stressful for a parent to have a child with developmental disorders.
The study included parents of children with Down’s Syndrome, 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome
(DS), Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
For this particular study, the data was collected by an online survey. The data was then coded for
each description that the parent provided of their child, whether it be positive, negative, or
neutral. Overall, the study concluded that understanding a child’s feelings, thoughts, and
motivations regarding negative terms is closely associated with feeling more stressed as a parent
of a child with a developmental disorder.
Research Questions/Hypotheses
Regarding this study, several hypotheses were examined to investigate the correlation of
mind-mindedness and parenting stress of parents who have children with developmental
disorders (Fionnuala et al., 2020). One hypothesis being that parents of children with
developmental disorders, with respect to mental and non-mental characteristics, would be more
likely to describe their child using negatively-valenced child descriptions than parents of
typically developed children. A second hypothesis considering parents of children with
developmental disorders would have higher parenting stress than in parents with typically
developed children. A third hypothesis investigated during this study was that mind-mindedness
and positively-valenced descriptions would predict lower parenting stress while negatively-
valenced descriptions would predict higher parenting stress. The last hypothesis provided by the
study is that disorder-related descriptions would be negatively related to mind-mindedness.
There are several strengths to these different hypotheses. One of the strengths being that
each of the hypotheses fully covered the basis to answer the question of the effect that having a
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 4
child with developmental issues has on a parent. Another strength to these hypotheses provided
by the researchers is that it also includes the comparison to parents of children who are typically
developed. This allows for an extra insight into how having a child with a developmental
disorder can truly affect a parent. A weakness to these research questions could be that there are
too many. Sometimes during a study, research can be mire broad instead of focusing on one
particular question or hypothesis.
Methods/Measures
The purpose of finding the correlation between parental stress when having children with
a developmental disorder is important because it can help other parents who are struggling with
the same emotions feel as though that they have a voice. It also allows parents to understand that
it is normal to have these feelings as a parent of a child with developmental disorders. The
researchers for this article collected data using an online survey which incorporated responses
from 235 parents. These participants included parents of children who have been diagnosed with
a developmental disorder such as ADHD, ASD, Down’s Syndrome, or 22q11.2 Deletion
Syndrome, as well as parents of children who are typically developed. The online survey
required them to answer questions on demographics of the family along with the child,
proceeded by the describe-your-child measure to assess mind-mindedness, and lastly a measure
of parental stress (Fionnuala et al., 2020).
Regarding the mind-mindedness portion of the survey, parents were asked to describe
their child in the space provided below with no further instruction. This allowed for researchers
to code the responses using six different categories to categorize the descriptive attributes
provided by the parent of the child (Fionnuala et al., 2020). The first category coded was mental,
which were attributes related to the child. The second category coded was behavioral, which
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 5
referred to the behavior of the child along with their style for interacting. The third category
coded for the study was physical, which consisted of comments regarding the child’s physical
appearance, age, or position within the family. Following this was a coded category for general,
which included any comments that did not fit in with any of the other categories. The second to
last category to be coded was for self-referential, which were comments related to the
descriptions that referred more to the parent rather than the child themselves. Finally, the last
category coded during this study was disorder-related, which primarily focused on descriptions
provided by the parents regarding the child’s disorder. Each of the descriptions provided by the
parents was coded as either positive, negative, or neutral.
In the next portion of the survey, parents were asked to complete the Parenting Stress
Index-Short form. This was a questionnaire where the parents were asked to rate their agreement
with several statements which were provided to them. Their answers to these questions were on a
rating scale of one meaning that you strongly agree to five meaning that you strongly disagree
with the statement. Higher scores then indicated that the parent was experiencing higher stress.
Dispersing the parents’ responses to the open-ended question asking them to describe
their child into six different categories was definitely a strength for this study. This allowed for
an easier way to explore each of the responses given. A weakness to gaining responses like this is
that anyone can say whatever they want which may not always pertain to the research question at
hand.
Results
The study established interesting results regarding that data that was provided to the
researchers. After testing if the proportion of negative mental descriptions provided by the
parents differentiated between the diagnostic groups, it was concluded that the ADHD group had
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 6
a higher quantity of negative mental descriptions compared to the Down’s Syndrome group
(Fionnuala et al., 2020). Another interesting find regarding this testing was that researchers found
that the Down’s Syndrome group experienced significantly lower levels of positive mental
descriptions than the typically developed group. Using the same model, after testing the
proportion of positive, non-mental descriptions there were significant differences between the
typically developed, ADHD, and ASD groups. The typically developed group had higher levels
of positive, non-mental descriptions compared to the other two groups. These findings for this
model lay out a strength of the model itself. By using this model, researchers were able to easily
obtain these results in order to supply these conclusions.
Results on the Parent Stress Index and the describe-your-child survey revealed that
parenting stress was exceptionally high for having a child with ASD and ADHD groups and the
lowest for having children who are typically developed (Fionnuala et al., 2020). Overall, a parent
having a child with ASD or ADHD disclosed significantly higher stress compared to a parent in
any other groups. Following this, parents of children who had 22q11.2DS reported higher levels
of stress than parents who have a typically developed child. The main result demonstrated by the
Parent Stress Index and the describe-your-child survey is that parents who describe their child
with reference to their developmental disorders were associated with a reduced focus on the
child’s overall mental and positive mental characteristics in this study. These findings exemplify
the strength and importance of how a parent describes their child truly shows just how stressed
they undeniably can be.
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 7
Discussion
The overall results of this study conveyed numerous outcomes that ultimately answered
the research questions and hypotheses. One of these outcomes referred to how the results showed
that parents of children who had ASD and ADHD tended to have a higher stress level than all of
the other groups (Fionnuala et al., 2020). Parenting children who have developmental disorders
such as these do hold a huge weight of emotions and responsibilities that bring on all this stress.
Following this, parents who had children who were typically developed had lower stress levels
than parents of children with 22q11.2DS. Additionally, lower levels of mind-mindedness were
expressed in parents who described their children with reference to their developmental disorder.
Naturally, the study’s results showed that parents of typically developed children used the highest
levels of positive descriptions when completing the online survey (Fionnuala et al., 2020).
Another result that correlates with the researcher’s predictions is that the negative valence of a
child description was more common in children who had a developmental disorder compared to
those without. One interesting finding in this study is that parents of children who have genetic
disorders tend to be less focused on positive cognitive aspects when reflecting on their children.
Ultimately, parents who have children with Down’s Syndrome can experience anxiety and stress
when their children encounter developmental delays that are relative to their peers. Due to this
finding, parents would be less inclined to focus on the cognitive strengths in their children or
other mental qualities, which are positive, that the children possess.
While the results expressed conclusions that coincided with the overall research questions
and hypotheses, there were various limitations regarding this study as well. One major limitation
being that due to the child’s diagnoses being reported by the parents and not independently
verified by the study teams established a possibility for errors within the diagnoses (Fionnuala et
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 8
al., 2020). Another extensive limitation with this study is that the Strengths and Difficulties
Questionnaire was not used to calculate the severity of the children’s developmental difficulties.
Doing this questionnaire could have inevitably affected the outcome of the overall results of said
study. A comprehensive strength for this study is that it exhibited inclusion amongst children
with both chromosomal and developmental disorders.
Conclusion
While being a parent to a child with developmental disorders can be fulfilling, it also
emerges a substantial amount of stress. Mind-mindedness and developmental disorders in
children play a key role in the level of stress parents of these children endure in their day-to-day
life. This study truly assessed the relationship between these matters and what part, whether it be
big or not, affects parents the most when having a child who possesses a developmental disorder.
The research conducted by this study fundamentally laid a framework for understanding the
magnitude of stress that comes along with being a parent to a child who has a developmental
disorder such as Down’s Syndrome, 22q11.2 Deletion Syndrome, Autism, or Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity disorder.
PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH DEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS 9
References
Fionnuala, L., Hayiou-Thomas, M., Zaynah, A., Leonard, M., Williams, F. J., Nicoletta, K.,
Malouta, R. N., Marshall Charlotte, R. P., Diamantopoulou, M., Etonia, T., Sneha, M., &
Meins, E. (2020). Mind-Mindedness and Stress in Parents of Children with
Developmental Disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51(2), 600-
612. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04570-9
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