Mothers of Children Who have an Intellectual Disability: Their Attributions, Emotions and Behavioural Responses to Their Child's Challenging Behaviour

Background This paper examines the application of Weiner's attribution model to the responses of mothers to the challenging behaviour of their children who have an intellectual disability. It was expected that the attributions, assignment of responsibility and emotional and behavioural responses of mothers of children with an intellectual disability would vary as a function of the child's behavioural topography and level of intellectual disabilities. The paper further examines whether, as suggested by Weiner's model, anger mediates the effect of attribution of responsibility on likelihood of punishment as an intervention. Method Fifty-six mothers of children with an intellectual disability rated their attributions, assignment of responsibility and emotional and behavioural responses to three vignettes describing challenging behaviours. Results Mothers rated their children as significantly more in control of, responsible for, and felt significantly more angry about aggressive behaviour than stereotypic behaviour and were significantly more likely to punish aggressive behaviour than self-injurious or stereotypic behaviour. Regression analysis suggests that mothers who assign more responsibility to their child were more likely to consider punishing their child and that this relationship is mediated by anger. Conclusions The study offers support for some aspects of Weiner's attribution model with this group of parents. Implications for clinical work with parents of children who have an intellectual disability are discussed.