Mother-Child Closeness Trajectories in Families of Children With Intellectual Disabilities From a UK Cohort Study.
Emma L Taylor, Paul A Thompson, Samantha Flynn and 2 others
Mother-child closeness in families of children with intellectual disabilities does not split into distinct groups and stays roughly the same across three waves.
Higher maternal distress and an autism diagnosis go with lower closeness; better child communication and prosocial behaviour go with higher closeness.
Key findings
1Growth mixture modelling did not support distinct subgroup trajectories of mother-child closeness; a single trajectory best fits the data, with poor entropy and inconsistent fit indices for 2- and 3-class models.
2There was no significant change in mother-child closeness over time (b = 0.10, SE = 0.11, p = 0.39), with mean scores of 26.21, 26.83, and 26.74 at Waves 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
3Within the single trajectory, higher maternal psychological distress (b = -0.07, p = 0.01) and an autism diagnosis (b = -1.37, p = 0.001) were associated with lower closeness, while child prosocial behaviour (b = 0.72, p < 0.001) and communication skills (b = 0.55, p < 0.001) were associated with higher closeness. Child behavioural and emotional problems were not significantly associated (b = -0.05, p = 0.06).
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How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
Only three waves of data were available, so non-linear trajectory shapes could not be modelled and the slope was assumed linear with equal spacing between waves. The sample was predominantly White British (88%), limiting generalisability to more diverse populations. All data were mother-reported; the perspectives of fathers or the children themselves were not captured. The age range at Wave 1 was broad (4 to 15 years 11 months), so the sample mixes early and late childhood. Model convergence problems forced the team to deviate from their pre-registration by removing two covariates and capping the conditional models at three classes rather than four. Missing data ranged from 0% to 5.7% and were assumed missing completely at random (chi-squared = 696, df = 664, p = 0.19).
Declared interests
The authors declare no conflicts of interest. The 1000 Families Study was funded by Cerebra UK, the Economic and Social Research Council Warwick Doctoral Training Centre, and the University of Warwick. The lead author is funded by an ESRC Midlands Graduate School Doctoral Training Partnership PhD studentship.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the autism and distress associations as evidence that treating autism or reducing maternal distress will increase mother-child closeness. This is an observational cohort study with no intervention, and the growth mixture model found a single trajectory, meaning these are associations within one group rather than effects distinguishing separate subgroups. The authors also note that the random-effects variance suggests families may cluster at high or low closeness levels, but the modelling did not support splitting them into distinct groups.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →