Research during the COVID-19 pandemic has shown a strong relationship between child symptoms, parental stress, and mental health challenges. The pandemic has changed family routines, worsening child symptomatology and parental burden. The aim of this study was to investigate how the magnitude of the perceived changes in child externalizing behavior, parental stress, and discontinuity of therapy—from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic—affected parental mental health during the pandemic. Moreover, we sought to compare these aspects cross-culturally between European countries and the USA. To these purposes, we asked Italian, Spanish, and U.S. parents of children with neurodevelopmental disabilities (NDD) to complete an online survey. Quantitative results showed that increased parental stress may have contributed to a worsening in parental psychological distress, regardless of culture. Moreover, they suggested an indirect effect of child externalizing behaviors on parents’ psychological distress via parental stress. Qualitative analyses highlighted that the lack, or discontinuity, of therapeutic activities may have been one of the key contributors to parenting burden during the COVID-19 pandemic. Finally, qualitative results highlighted resilience factors that could have decreased the risk of psychological problems during the pandemic, such as a strong sense of parental efficacy and the ability to adapt to changing family dynamics.

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The school textbook is a cultural artefact capable of conveying a particular cultural and social imagery that clearly affects the attitudes of teachers and learners towards disability. This paper presents an exploratory-descriptive study that aims to investigate the attitudes of primary school teachers towards the representation of disability within the school textbook. Correlation between attitudes and teaching qualifications and experience were also sought. For this purpose, a questionnaire was constructed starting from macro-themes that emerged from semi-structured interviews during the previous qualitative phase. Findings have shown that teachers, while aware of the low educational value of the textbook and the scarcity of images and texts related to disability, have positive attitudes towards inclusive representation, use and design of materials related to special needs. Finally, teachers with the specialization for support activities were found to have more positive attitudes towards the representation and management of materials representing the reality of disability.   Rappresentazione della disabilità nei libri di testo: gli atteggiamenti degli insegnanti della scuola primaria. Il libro di testo scolastico costituisce un artefatto culturale che veicola un particolare immaginario destinato ad influenzare le percezioni di insegnanti e alunni. L’articolo presenta uno studio esplorativo-descrittivo che mira ad investigare gli atteggiamenti dei docenti nei confronti della rappresentazione della disabilità all’interno dei libri di testo scolastici. A tale scopo è stato costruito un questionario ad hoc a partire dai macro-temi emersi dalle interviste semi-strutturate durante la precedente fase qualitativa. La ricerca mostra che gli insegnanti, pur consapevoli dello scarso valore educativo del libro di testo e della scarsità di immagini e testi relativi alla disabilità, hanno atteggiamenti positivi nei confronti della rappresentazione inclusiva e delle competenze personali nella gestione di materiali relativi alla realtà dei bisogni speciali. Gli insegnanti in possesso della specializzazione per le attività di sostegno, infine, tendono ad avere atteggiamenti più positivi nei confronti della rappresentazione della e dell’utilizzo di immagini e testi disabilità all’interno dei libri di testo rappresentanti la disabilità.

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