Marital Adjustment in Parents of Children with Disabilities: A Historical Review and Meta-Analysis

This report uses meta-analytic methods to reexamine a body of research literature on comparative levels of divorce and marital satisfaction/discord in parents of children with and without developmental disabilities in light of new assumptions about variability in family adjustment, including successful family adaptation and longterm resilience. A historical review of the literature on the impacts of children with disability on their family describes longstanding negative assumptions, in keeping with a view of disability as inevitably detrimental to couples and other family members. This meta-analysis finds a much smaller effect on parents' marital relationships than would be expected under older assumptions about disability and family.