Openness and avoidance--a longitudinal study of fathers of children with intellectual disability.

Fathers' interactions with children who have intellectual disabilities (ID) or developmental delays (DD) have increased over the past few decades and may be expected to continue to increase as maternal and paternal roles, along with other gender roles, become more equal. The aim of the present study was to explore fathers' experiences of parenthood in relation to a child with ID/DD from the initial discovery of the disability to 5 years later. Fathers' experiences of parenting children with ID/DD were explored in a longitudinal framework. Seven Swedish fathers of young children with ID/DD participated in a series of semi-structured interviews from 2005 to 2010, and their accounts were subjected to interpretative phenomenological analysis. The analysis revealed three themes: (1) An interrupted path - no longer taking things for granted, which describes the fathers' reactions to their children's diagnosis; (2) Being a good father, which describes the fathers' overall perceptions of their parenting of a child with ID/DD; and (3) Dealing with the unexpected, which describes fathers' individual ways of integrating, managing, and living with the knowledge of their child's disability over the 5 years during which fathers were interviewed. Fathers' individual paths need to be taken into consideration when offering psychological support to families of children with ID/DD.

Boström PK ，Broberg M 《-》

Intrusive fathering, children's self-regulation and social skills: a mediation analysis.

Fathers have unique influences on children's development, and particularly in the development of social skills. Although father-child relationship influences on children's social competence have received increased attention in general, research on fathering in families of children with developmental delays (DD) is scant. This study examined the pathway of influence among paternal intrusive behaviour, child social skills and child self-regulatory ability, testing a model whereby child regulatory behaviour mediates relations between fathering and child social skills. Participants were 97 families of children with early identified DD enrolled in an extensive longitudinal study. Father and mother child-directed intrusiveness was coded live in naturalistic home observations at child age 4.5, child behaviour dysregulation was coded from a video-taped laboratory problem-solving task at child age 5, and child social skills were measured using independent teacher reports at child age 6. Analyses tested for mediation of the relationship between fathers' intrusiveness and child social skills by child behaviour dysregulation. Fathers' intrusiveness, controlling for mothers' intrusiveness and child behaviour problems, was related to later child decreased social skills and this relationship was mediated by child behaviour dysregulation. Intrusive fathering appears to carry unique risk for the development of social skills in children with DD. Findings are discussed as they related to theories of fatherhood and parenting in children with DD, as well as implications for intervention and future research.

Stevenson M ，Crnic K 《-》

Sense of coherence and parenting stress in mothers and fathers of preschool children with developmental disability.

Oelofsen N ，Richardson P 《JOURNAL OF INTELLECTUAL & DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY》

Early childhood predictors of mothers' and fathers' relationships with adolescents with developmental disabilities.

Mitchell DB ，Hauser-Cram P 《-》

Fathers and the well-child visit.

Garfield CF ，Isacco A 《-》