Family
Family
Family environments influence the development of all children, including those with
Down syndrome.
Research studies indicate that the majority of families cope well
with bringing up a child with Down syndrome. They find the resources to adapt and
to cope with the additional needs of their child and continue to lead ordinary lives.
In these families, brothers and sisters lives do not seem affected in negative ways
in the long term and nor do marriage relationships, even though there may be times
when life seems to be more difficult as a result of meeting the needs of the family
member with Down syndrome.
However, some families find life difficult for a variety
of reasons such as poverty, poor housing, significant health difficulties or behavioural
difficulties in their children and lack of family, community and social supports.
There is a lot of useful information from this research which can have practical
relevance for families and services.
Further reading and resources
Activities and achievements
The Trust has not carried out any significant research on family issues to date
but Trust staff have reviewed the literature in a number of publications and have
many years of personal and practical experience of the issues facing families.
They
share this knowledge and experience on training events especially when working with
families in the early months after their child's diagnosis.
Education
The Trust has published 2 books[1,2] containing a review of the information on family
issues and need in the Down Syndrome
Issues and Information series. Trust staff have published 1 paper in a peer-reviewed
journal[3], 5 articles in other publications and presented 2 papers at conferences
on family issues.
References
- Buckley, S. (2002). Issues for families with children with Down
syndrome. Portsmouth, UK: The Down Syndrome Educational Trust.
- Cuskelly, M., Brown, I., Shearer, J. and Singh, B. (2006).
Families of adults with Down syndrome. Portsmouth, UK: The Down
Syndrome Educational Trust.
- Stores, R., Stores G., Fellows, B. & Buckley, S. (1998). Daytime
behaviour problems and maternal stress in children with Down syndrome,
their siblings, their non-intellectually disabled and other
intellectually disabled peers. Journal of Intellectual Disability
Research, 42, 3, 228-237.
A list of publications
related to work in this area is available.