Retardation and the burden of stigma

Levinson, Richard; Starling, Debra M.

doi:10.1080/01639625.1981.9967563

Cited by 15 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…This distribution of child gender is not unusual when dealing with special-needs children. The greater prevalence of developmental disabilities among boys is probably a result of gender-linked recessive conditions (Tyson & Favell, 1988) and society's higher expectations for boys' intellectual competence than for girls' (Levinson & Starling, 1981;Marsh, 1992;Tyson & Favell, 1988). Of the various diagnoses, 33% of the children had Down's syndrome, 3 1% had autism, 23% had developmental delays, and 13% had other etiologies of cognitive delays (e.g., cerebral palsy, fragile X syndrome, congenital hydrocephalus).…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs¹

Mickelson

Wroble

Helgeson

1999

J Applied Social Pyschol

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Although research exists on how attributions for traumatic life events are related to adjustment, little has focused on parents' attributions for their children's special needs. Parents were interviewed twice over 1 year about their attributions for their children's special needs. We used parents' open-ended responses during the initial interview to construct a ratings survey for the second interview. Parents of children with Down's syndrome made attributions to genetic fluke, age, and fate/God's will; parents of autistic children made attributions to heredity and environment; parents of developmentally delayed children made attributions to medical problems and stress during pregnancy. Self-blame attributions and attributions to the environment were related to worse adjustment, whereas attributions to fatelGod's will were related to better adjustment. Implications for family interventions and physicians are discussed.Receiving news that an infant or child has a cognitive disability often leads parents to ask "Why my child?" This questioning triggers a search for meaning, either in terms of what caused the disability or a reason for why it happened to them in particular (Taylor, 1983). However, for nearly one third of children with cognitive disabilities, there is no clear etiological reason for the disability (Marsh, 1992). This uncertainty intensifies the search for a cause because people have a difficult time accepting that no reason exists for a traumatic event. Causal explanations, or attributions, provide a feeling of control and make the world seem less random (Janoff-Bulman & Wortman, 1977). Parents may construct their own causal attributions in order to make sense of the event. The question then becomes which, if any, attributions are beneficial for a parent's adjustment.

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Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Perceived stigma. Perceived stigma associated with the child's diagnosis was assessed with an eight-item measure adapted from two previously used measures (Crandall, 1991;Levinson & Starling, 1981; see Appendix A for instrument).…”

Section: Instrumentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs¹

Mickelson

Wroble

Helgeson

1999

J Applied Social Pyschol

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“…There are important theoretical and practical imperatives towards finding a new way of studying stigma. It has been widely acknowledged in recent years that people with disabling conditions and their families may be as greatly handicapped by stigmatizing community attitudes as by the disability itself (see for example, Ablon, 1981;Darling & Darling, 1982;Davis, 1977;Gibbons, 1985;Levinson & Starling, 1981;Scott, 1981;Sutherland, 1981). Therefore, it is very important to understand the impact of stigma on the life experience of children who are mentally retarded and their families and the conditions under which it may be alleviated.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating stigma as stress in social interactions of parents

Baxter¹

1989

J intellect Disabil Res

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ABSTRACT. A new approach to the study of stigma was introduced and applied in an exploratory study designed to investigate the parental experience of stigma within the theoretical framework of the stress process. Interviews were conducted with 131 mothers and fathers of mentally retarded children in three age cohorts. Parentperceived stress attributed to social attitudes was measured on a 5‐point, Liken‐type scale. Three deviating characteristics of the child were identified as ‘stressors’. ‘Noticeability’ of the child's speech and behaviour, and also behaviour management problems were found to be significantly associated with parental stress. No association was found between ‘noticeability’ of the child's appearance and parental stress. Distressing reactions of others, such as staring, displaying discomfort, inappropriately ignoring and drawing attention to the child were also identified as stressors. Multiple regression analysis showed that these two sets of variables accounted for 57% of the variance in explaining parental stress. The concept of stigma as stress was assessed as offering a promising direction for further research.

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“…Both Birenbaum (1970) and Levinson and Starling (1981), for example, reported that parents of mentally retarded children experienced strained relationships and social exclusion. Sack, Seidler, and Thomas (1976) found that the spouses of imprisoned parents suffered disrupted social relations and that their children were teased by peers.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

Courtesy Stigma: The Social Implications of Associating with a Gay Person

Sigelman

Howell

Cornell

et al. 1991

The Journal of Social Psychology

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We investigated the operation of courtesy stigma with American male college students who reacted to a fictitious male student described as gay, rooming by choice with a gay male student, involuntarily assigned to room with a gay, or rooming with a male heterosexual. Among respondents who expressed strong intolerance of gays, the voluntary associate of a gay was perceived as having homosexual tendencies and as possessing the same stereotyped personality traits attributed to a gay. No such courtesy stigma was attached to the involuntary associate of a gay by these respondents. Relatively tolerant respondents engaged in no courtesy stigmatization at all. Thus, courtesy stigmatization occurred only under circumscribed conditions and appeared to depend more on the tendency of highly intolerant individuals to infer that a male student who apparently liked a gay individual was himself gay than on a motivation to maintain cognitive consistency.

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Retardation and the burden of stigma

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs¹

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs¹

Investigating stigma as stress in social interactions of parents

Courtesy Stigma: The Social Implications of Associating with a Gay Person

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Retardation and the burden of stigma

Cited by 15 publications

References 11 publications

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs1

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs1

Investigating stigma as stress in social interactions of parents

Courtesy Stigma: The Social Implications of Associating with a Gay Person

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs¹

“Why My Child?”: Parental Attributions for Children's Special Needs¹