Characteristics of home environment of families with mentally retarded children: comparison across levels of retardation

Abstract

To help fill the relative void of information about families of severely mentally retarded school children, we described 53 such families comparatively with 54 families of EMR and 50 of TMR children. All children resided in their natural homes; families were selected for study by identical means and interviewed at their home. Selection for comparison was made from larger samples to reduce mean age differences in the samples. Differences in age and SES among groups were controlled with analysis of covariance. The impact of the retarded child on adjustment of families with severely retarded children was greater than that of the other groups, but no differences occurred in the impact of the child on marital adjustment. Families with severely retarded children had the highest mean scores on all four scores of the Home Quality Rating Scale. They scored lower than others on the Cohesion, Independence, Moral-Religious Emphasis, and Organization subscales of the Family Environment Scale. Implications for assisting these families were discussed.