The influence of early intervention, informal support and the family environment on trajectories of competence for fathers raising children with developmental disabilities

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ridd.2018.04.025Get rights and content

Highlights

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    Analyzed fathers’ competence trajectories from their child’s toddlerhood through adolescence.

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    No significant change over time in paternal competence.

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    Family relationships, home visit helpfulness and informal support predicted father competence.

Abstract

Background

Scant research disentangles the relationship between parenting competence, early intervention (EI) services, the family environment and informal support among fathers of children with developmental disabilities.

Aims

(1) To determine the trajectory of parental competence for fathers of children with DD from age 3 to age 15. (2) Controlling for child and family characteristics, determine the main effects of the family environment, informal support, and EI services on paternal competence when their child with a developmental disability was age 3. (3) To determine whether there were lasting effects of the family environment, informal support, and the EI service system on differences in paternal competence over time.

Methods

This study used multilevel modeling to analyze longitudinal data from 93 American fathers from the Early Intervention Collaborative Study.

Results

There was no significant change over time in paternal competence after controlling for various covariates. Fathers who initially reported low levels of competence when their child was three reported continuously lower competence over time. Family relationships, positive supports, and perceived helpfulness of home visits were significant predictors of paternal competence at age three.

Conclusion

Implications for programs and policy include developing and adopting rigorous ways to measure and carefully monitor service provision, including assessments of paternal competence, family relationships and informal supports at the start of early intervention, and fostering continuous collaborations between providers, researchers and clinicians to address challenges in data collection.

Section snippets

What this paper adds?

This paper adds to the literature on well-being for families of children with developmental disabilities, specifically for fathers who have traditionally been neglected in research and clinical settings. It also contributes knowledge about unknown predictors of paternal well-being; in particular, the total number of informal supports fathers received and the importance of having a positive family environment. Fathers who report a greater number of positive support, in addition to those

Participants

This research employed a quantitative, longitudinal analysis of secondary data from the Early Intervention Collaborative Study (EICS; Shonkoff, Hauser-Cram, Krauss, & Upshur, 1992), a 24-year longitudinal study of approximately 190 families of children with DD originally recruited when their children enrolled in EI programs in Massachusetts and New Hampshire between 1985 and 1987. Sample selection was based on representation of the three most common disability categories served by EI programs

Descriptive findings

Results of descriptive statistics for child and family characteristics, the outcome variable, and predictor variables are summarized in Table 1. Fathers had a mean age of 34, completed approximately 14 years of education, and had an average income between $20–$30,000 per year when their child was 3 years old (adjusted to 2018 dollars, this range is $47–$71,000 per year) (United States Department of Labor, 2018). Most participating parents were white (90%) and married (89%), however, it is

Discussion

Several findings resulting from this study warrant discussion. Foremost, mean paternal competence was stable over time. Exploratory post-hoc analyses suggest there may be important differences in levels of competence between different subgroups of fathers. The descriptive investigation found that fathers who started out with competence scores above the mean at age three continuously reported higher scores at each consecutive time point compared to fathers who reported competence below the mean

Conclusion

This study investigated trajectories of parental competence for fathers raising children with DD, and the predictors of such competence. We found little evidence of a change in parental competence over time for fathers, but identified stark differences over time between groups of fathers who started at higher versus lower levels of competence when their child was three years old. There was also significant variability in paternal competence when the child was three and no longer eligible for EI

Acknowledgements

The Early Intervention Collaborative Study was funded by Grant No. R40 MC08956 through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Maternal and Child Health Research Program. This project was supported by grant number T32HS000063 from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

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