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“Stop talking about my disability, I am a mother”: Adapting video interaction guidance to increase sensitive parenting in a young mother with intellectual disability
Author(s) -
Pethica Stefania,
Bigham Katie
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
british journal of learning disabilities
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.633
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1468-3156
pISSN - 1354-4187
DOI - 10.1111/bld.12215
Subject(s) - intellectual disability , intervention (counseling) , psychology , institutionalisation , psychological intervention , video feedback , developmental psychology , challenging behaviour , psychiatry , physics , optics
Accessible SummaryParents with intellectual disabilities often have their children placed under child protection. People with intellectual disabilities can find it difficult to access universal parenting programmes and can find it difficult to get professional help for their problems. Video Interaction Guidance is an approach designed to help parents care for their children. This case study shows that Video Interaction Guidance really helped a young mother with intellectual disability.Abstract Background Parenting can be challenging for people with intellectual disabilities. The nature of the parents' intellectual disability as well as past experiences of institutionalisation, insensitive care and inadequate support can interfere with parents' capacity to provide responsive and appropriate parenting to their own children. This can result in parents with intellectual disabilities being investigated under child protection procedures. There is little evidence for parenting interventions to improve attachment in parents with intellectual disability. Method This is a case report of “Sarah,” a young mother with mild intellectual disability, whose children were placed on the child protection register. A behavioural video‐feedback approach that focused on Sarah's strengths, Video Interaction Guidance, was adapted to Sarah's intellectual disability. Results Sarah demonstrated a noticeable increase in the frequency of sensitive interactions with her children as well as increased engagement with support services and request for more instructional parenting input. Conclusion This study demonstrates the feasibility of using Video Interaction Guidance with parents with an intellectual disability and offers suggestions on adapting the intervention to suit individual parents' needs. Further systematic research is, however, necessary to prove the effectiveness of this approach.