Adult children of parents with learning difficulties

Tim Booth

Narrative Inquiry, 9(1), 1999, pp. 123-137.

This paper reports on a study of now-adult children who grew up in families headed by a parent or parents with learning difficulties. The study set out to use narrative techniques to capture something of their experience through the stories they told about their past and present lives.

Narrative researchers invariably find themselves trapped between the richness of their material and the space for writing it up. This paper addresses this conundrum by arguing for the use of composite stories or stereotypes as a methodological device for trying to convey lives 'in the round' through the synthesising function of employment.