Having a parent with a learning disability

• Research type

  Research Study

• Full title

  A qualitative investigation into the experiences of having a parent with a learning disability

• IRAS ID

  114400

• Contact name

  Olivia Hewitt

• Contact email

  olivia.hewitt@berkshire.nhs.uk

• Sponsor organisation

  Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation trust

• Research summary

  People with a learning disability are increasingly undertaking socially valued roles such as being a parent. Within this study a learning disability is defined as a significant impairment of intellectual functioning (an IQ score of 69 or less), significant impairment of adaptive/social functioning and the age of onset before adulthood (British Psychological Society, 2000). There is a tension between providing adequate support in order to enable parents with a learning disability to parent their children successfully, and protecting children as paramount . However there remains little literature about the outcomes of parenting by people with a learning disability. Outcome studies focus on quantitative results (e.g. experience of non-accidental injury) and the lived experience of these childhoods are rarely heard (Hewitt, 2007; Collins & Llewellyn, 2012).
  This research will examine what it like is to grow up with a parent (or parents) with a learning disability. It is hoped that this would contribute to a more sophisticated way of assessing parenting skills and risk to the child, in order to facilitate parenting wherever possible and to ensure child safety. Participants will be people (with or without a learning disability) aged 17 years or older. They will have at least one parent (including step or foster parent) with a learning disability and will be able to give informed consent to take part in the study. Participants will engage with an in depth interview with a researcher which will take place at the participant’s home, or a neutral location in the community (such as a day centre). The interviews will generally last between 30 and 90 minutes, depending on the amount of material provided by the participants. The interviews will be transcribed, and the data analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). The results will then be disseminated in a peer reviewed journal.

• REC name

  South Central - Oxford A Research Ethics Committee

• REC reference

  13/SC/0456

• Date of REC Opinion

  18 Nov 2013

• REC opinion

  Further Information Favourable Opinion