Caitlin Williams is a Cerebra funded PhD student at the University of Warwick. Her first PhD study used data from the 1000 Families Project and investigated how the wellbeing of family members is related.
In the video below Caitlin explains how other research studies tend to focus on relationships between two members of a family, for example, a child with a learning disability and their mother. Caitlin’s study looked at the relationships between a child with a learning disability, their mother and a sibling.
Her study found that high levels of maternal stress were associated with increased behavioural problems in the sibling and behavioural problems in the child with a learning disability were associated with high levels of maternal stress. The findings demonstrate that the wellbeing of family members is related and that introducing measures to improve behaviour in children with a learning disability may improve outcomes for other family members.
You can watch Caitlin explain the study here:
You should take this further with practical strategies to reduce stress within families faced with difficult circumstances….look at aChild2Child.co.uk to see how nurturing touch has a profound impact. Look at the work of Professor McGlone at Liverpool John Moores Uni… take it a step further.