Developmental disabilities

In contrast to other forms of family caregiving, becoming the parent or carer of a child with an intellectual disability (ID) implies an ongoing responsibility beyond the attainment of chronological adulthood (Meyers et al., 1985; Todd and Shearn, 1996). At the same time, a discourse of self-determination pervades policy around transition to adult services in ID in England (Valuing People, 2001). In this paper we present a subset of data from a project which aimed to examine how the process of transition from child to adult services in ID is managed.

Background.  Stroke is the third most common cause of death in industrialized countries and a major cause of adult disability. However, the burden of caring for stroke survivors usually rests with family members who have neither chosen nor volunteered for the role of ‘carer’.

Aims.  This paper reports on a study which aimed to describe the experience of caring for a stroke survivor at one year after stroke in Scotland.

Background Understanding how financial well-being changes through the life course of caregiving parents of children with developmental disabilities is critically important. Methods We analyse SIPP (U.S. Census Bureau) data to describe income poverty, asset poverty, income, net worth, and liquid assets of US parents ( N = 753) of children with developmental disabilities. Results Income and asset poverty was greatest for the youngest and oldest parents.

Caring alters plans to return to work and changes career trajectories for many primary caregivers of children with disabilities, most of whom are mothers. The Juggling Work & Care study was a South Australian cross-sectional mail-out and online survey for carers of children and young adults with developmental disabilities aged 0–25 years, which investigated work participation, work–life balance and psychological well-being.

This scoping review addressed the following questions: (a) What types of caregiver interventions are being done in both aging and developmental disability research? (b) How are these interventions similar and different? (c) What kinds of outcomes do these interventions have? (d) What innovative approaches are these interventions using? and (e) What can each field (developmental disabilities and gerontology) learn from the other based on this review?