The Parent-Child Relationship in Families of Children With Mild to Borderline Intellectual Disabilities and Externalizing Behavior

Children with Mild to Borderline Intellectual Disabilities (MBID) have an IQ from 50-70 or 70-85 with social adjustment problems. Children and adolescents with MBID have been found to have an increased risk of displaying aggressive behavior and social skills deficits (Guralnick & Groom, 1987) compared to their peers with an average IQ. From research on children with an average IQ we know that parenting and the parent-child relationship are related to externalizing behavior in children (Dodge & Pettit, 2003). Parenting children with MBID involves additional challenges due to the children’s lower cognitive abilities (Baker, Blacher, Crnic, & Edelbrock, 2002), but has been hardly studied. This study aimed to examine the association between parenting behavior, the parent-child relationship, and externalizing behavior in families of children with MBID. The families of 184 children with MBID aged 9 to 16 years participated in this cross-sectional study. The participating children’s mean age was 12.4 years (SD = 2.07). The mean intelligence score was 71 (SD = 7.98). The sample of children with MBID further consisted of two groups: a problem behavior group (n = 113) and a comparison group (n = 71). The problem behavior group consisted of children who were receiving treatment for their MBID and externalizing behavior problems in day care treatment centers. The comparison group consisted of children selected from schools for special education, having MBID but no severe behavior problems. To determine how the children in the problem behavior group differed from the children in the comparison group with regard to externalizing behavior, parenting behavior, and the parent-child relationship, univariate analyses of covariance (ANCOVA) were conducted. In addition, Hierarchical Linear Multiple Regression (HLMR) analyses were next performed to investigate the unique contributions of parenting behavior and the parent-child relationship to the variation in externalizing child behavior. As shown in Table 1, families of a child with MBID and accompanying externalizing behavior problems (n = 113) reported more positive discipline and physical punishment but less involvement, less positive parenting, less monitoring, a lower sense of parenting competence, less acceptance of the child, and less closeness to the child compared to families of a child with MBID and no accompanying externalizing behavior problems (n = 71). The parent-child relationship was most strongly associated with externalizing child behavior reported by parents and teachers, over and above parenting behaviors (see Table 2). Our results highlight the importance of both the parent-child relationship and parenting behavior in connection with the occurrence of externalizing behavior problems on the part of children with MBID. The parent-child relationship may be even more important for children with MBID as the parent-child relationship is likely to be taxed by the challenges of having a child with MBID (Baker et al., 1997; Didden, 2005). Parenting behavior and the parent-child relationship may thus be promising targets for interventions with this group of children.