Coping Style and Quality of Life of Mothers having Children with Intellectual Disability and Dyslexia

Abstract

Nurturing children having disabilities can be extremely upsetting to a mother. Coping style adopted by mothers having children with disabilities are considered as an important factor in the overall development of the child as it is critically important for successfully raising the children. Since the nature of exceptionalities such as dyslexia and Intellectual Disability (ID) is different, the mothers may need to adopt different coping strategies for improving the quality of life (QoL). Researches in the area have suggested that the coping strategies significantly influence and predict quality of life. In this study it was aimed to examine the differences and relationship between coping style and QoL of mothers having children with Dyslexia and ID. Exploratory research method is used for the present study and as it provides a greater understanding of a concept. Mothers having children with exceptionalities selected on random sampling method was the participants of the study. The AECOM Coping Style Questionnaire (Shanty and Anita, 2006) and Quality of Life Scale (WHO, 1995) was used to measure the coping style and QoL of mothers. Results are presented based on the analysis of correlation, independent t test, and also multiple regression analysis. It was found that there is no significant statistical differences in the coping style and QoL of mothers having children with ID and dyslexia.