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Background Increasing numbers of adults with an intellectual disability are being cared for at home by ageing parents. The purpose of this study was to determine whether carer resources (i.e. social support and formal service use) and carer appraisals of ageing and stress/ burden mediate the relationships between (1) maladaptive behaviour and carer depression; (2) carer health and carer depression; (3) maladaptive behaviour and carer quality of life; and (4) carer health and carer quality of life. Methods Eighty parents over the age of 50 were interviewed using a number of measures concerning their overall health, perceptions of ageing and stress, depression, and their child's maladaptive behaviour.Results Carer perceptions of ageing and stress emerged as significant mediators of the relationship between carer health and depression. In addition, perceived carer stress emerged as a significant mediator of the relationship between maladaptive behaviour and carer depression. Resources and appraisals did not emerge as significant mediators in analyses using quality of life as a positive outcome. Conclusions Results highlight the important contributions of appraisals to well-being and raise questions for future research regarding the role of resources such as informal and formal support in the coping process.

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Children with developmental delay (DD) are at risk for behavior problems, but little is known about natural contingencies of reinforcement that these children experience. The present study used descriptive analysis (antecedent-behavior-consequence observations) to study parent-child interactions of fourty-seven, 2-3 year-old children with or at risk for DD. Child adaptive and inappropriate behavior as well as their antecedents and consequences were observed across four conditions (free play, parentdirected play, mealtimes, parental distraction). When parents were engaged in another task (distraction), child appropriate behavior occurred less frequently than in the other conditions, and child inappropriate behavior occurred 63% of the time. A lack of parental attention and no activity were the most frequent antecedents for inappropriate behavior. Potential positive reinforcers appeared as consequences of inappropriate child behavior 77% of the time. These findings have implications for the development and prevention of serious behavior disorders.

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