Parents with mental handicaps and adequate child care — a review

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Although there has been much concern about people with mental handicaps as parents, available evidence shows that: they do not necessarily have children who are mentally handicapped; they have fewer or the same number of children as the norm; while some provide inadequate child care, others provide adequate care; and they can develop parenting skills. Despite these tentative conclusions, there is a critical need for additional research that systematically addresses parenting issues with this group of people and seeks to answer the following questions. What are the predictors of adequate parenting? What types and frequency of training are useful? How do other factors such as emotional disturbance, stress, and health‐related problems influence acquisition and maintenance of parenting skills?