Mother's and Father's Responses to Signals of Children With Cerebral Palsy During Feeding

This paper describes mothers' and fathers' interactions in responding to children with cerebral palsy during a meal. Participants were 47 children aged 17–54 months, and their parents. Children were assessed via Bayley, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, Vineland, or observations, or all of these, and parents by Dyadic Adjustment Scale, Parenting Stress Index, and Reaction to Diagnosis Interview. Parent and child characteristics were related to interactions during lunch. Parents generally responded individually to signals; children gave nonspecific signals or signaled mothers more than fathers. Mothers responded significantly more often than did fathers, even controlling for frequency of signals. Undifferentiated signals were less often responded to by either parent. Parent–child interactions were not related to child's degree of motor impairment. Few significant relations existed between child gender, age, or cognitive function, and child or parent behaviors. Mothers' marital happiness related to father involvement in responding to child signals. Results are discussed in terms of parenting as a cooperative function.