A study of parents with learning difficulties

Grantholders: Tim Booth and Wendy Booth, funded by the Nuffield Foundation.

Research aims

• To explore the experience of parenthood by mothers and fathers with learning difficulties.

• To investigate the problems encountered by parents with learning difficulties and any shortcomings in the support provided to them.

• To frame a set of 'good practice' principles, grounded on parents' perceptions of their own needs, for the guidance of service providers and practitioners in the health and social services.

Research background

A literature scan using online and manual databases revealed no research that gave pride of place to the views, feelings and experiences of parents with learning difficulties or which accorded them the status of actors in the drama of their own lives.

This project set out to rectify some of these shortcomings by giving attention primarily to the parents, by listening to what they had to say about the rewards and demands of parenthood, and by using the life story approach as an antidote to accounts in which the parents as people make no appearance.

Study design and method

The study followed a two-stage design.

Stage 1

Unstructured interviews with 20 parents or sets of parents in different circumstances aimed at providing comparable information on their experiences of parenthood from becoming pregnant, through pregnancy, confinement and labour, to baby care, child-rearing and being a mother/father.

A small number of seven willing parents were chosen from this group to go forward into Stage 2.

Stage 2

The compilation over twelve months or more of in-depth, narrative accounts of people's lives as parents.

Contact with the families was extensive: we conducted 126 interviews as part of the study.

The fieldwork began in April 1991 and was completed in December 1992.

A full account of the study is given in the book Parenting under pressure.