Targeting families with developmental disabled children, this study aims at promoting family resilience and family adjustment and improving the children's ability to adjust themselves to society by making and carrying out a family resilience promotion...
Targeting families with developmental disabled children, this study aims at promoting family resilience and family adjustment and improving the children's ability to adjust themselves to society by making and carrying out a family resilience promotion program based on concepts of family resilience and family theraplay developed by Walsh(1998). For the purpose, the program was conducted and its effects were verified.
The subject of this study was 16 families with developmentally disabled children aged 4 to 7, who were collected through a notification in an integrated day care center located in Seoul and a welfare center for the disabled in Incheon. Respective 8 families were assigned into an experimental group and a control group, and each family subject consisted of a developmentally disabled child, his or her father and mother.
This family resilience promotion program was composed of a total of 20 sessions and each was one hour long. The sessions were conducted twice every week for three months from January 6th, 2007. The eight families in each group were divided into two sub-groups with four families to conduct the program.
A pretest was taken using scales for family resilience, family adjustment, and children's social competence before the family resilience promotion program was implemented. After the program was applied, a post-test was carried out using the same instruments. In addition, in case of the experimental group, MIM was conducted and analyzed to compare interaction between parents and their children before and after the program application. After the family resilience promotion program was implemented, satisfaction with the program was examined.
The data collected from this study were analyzed by SPSS Win 12.0, and frequency and percentages were calculated to examine sociodemographic characteristics. Reliability of the scales and consensus among observers were tested. Mann-Whitney U test was also carried out in order to examine whether there would be homogeneity between the groups in terms of their family resilience, family adjustment and children's social competence. The mean and the standard deviation were calculated and analysis of covariance was conducted to compare the results of pretest with those of post-test on family resilience, family adjustment, and children's social competence between the groups. MIM rating scale and MIM behavior rating scale were examined by video analysis and the results were shown in descriptive statistics, analysis of covariance and graph. Finally, frequency and percentages were computed to investigate the subjects' satisfaction with the family resilience promotion program.
The results of this study were summarized as the following:
First, after the family resilience promotion program was implemented, the mothers and fathers in the experimental group showed an increase in family control, attitudes towards disability, family strength, role stability, cohesion, family support, communication, emotional responses, and problem solving which are factors of family resilience perceived by parents. In addition, the result of analysis of covariance indicated statistically significant difference. These results demonstrate that the family resilience promotion program is effective in resilience promotion of family with developmentally disabled children.
Second, in terms of family adjustment which the parents of developmentally disabled children perceived, the experimental group's post-test score was higher than that of the control group. After the program was applied, the parents' perception of family adjustment was statistically significantly different. It means the family resilience promotion program is effective in promotion of family adjustment which fathers and mothers of developmentally disabled children perceive.
Third, according to the results of examining the children's social competence perceived by the parents, the experimental group got higher score in post-test than the control group did, and the difference was statistically significant. This result implies that the family resilience promotion program is effective in improvement in developmentally disabled children's social competence perceived by their parents.
Fourth, the finding of observing interaction between the parents and their developmentally disabled children showed that scores in aspects of structure, challenge, engagement, and nurture were higher in post-test than in pretest. Scores of interaction behavior were also higher in the post-test.
In sum, the family resilience promotion program targeting family with developmentally disabled children had positive effects on family resilience, family adjustment and children's social competence. In addition, it was demonstrated that the program had positive effects on interaction between parents and their disabled children.