Children’s and parents’ factors that affect parenting stress in preschool children with developmental disabilities or typical development

Abstract

Objective This study compared parenting stress in preschool children with developmental disabilities (DD) or typical development (TD). We also investigated children’s factors that affect parenting stress. Methods A total of 196 preschool children participated in the study (aged 54.8±9.2 months). There were 79 children with DD (59 with autism spectrum disorder, 61 with intellectual disability, 12 with language disorder) and 117 with TD. The high parenting stress and the low parenting stress groups were divided based on the Total Stress of Korean Parenting Stress Index Fourth Edition (K-PSI-4) with an 85-percentile cutoff score. Pearson’s correlation analysis was conducted to calculate the correlation between K-PSI-4 and the children’s or parents’ measures. Results The difference in parenting stress between DD and TD was significant in the Total Stress of K-PSI-4 (p<0.001). The Total Stress scale of K-PSI-4 represented a modest to strong correlation with cognitive development, adaptive functioning, social communication, and behavioral problems in children with DD. Our results showed that caregivers of children with DD reported higher parenting stress than those with TD. Parenting stress was strongly associated with cognitive development, adaptive functioning, social communication, and behavioral problems in children with DD. Among the children’s factors, especially social communication, attention problems, and aggressive behavior had association with caregivers’ higher parenting stress. Conclusion These findings suggest the need for early intervention for parenting stress in caregivers by assessing child characteristics, including social cognition, awareness, communication, and inattention and hyperactivity, in the evaluation of children with DD.