PTOTSLPSystematic ReviewFrontiers in rehabilitation sciences2024

Resilience and adolescence-transition in youth with developmental disabilities and their families: a scoping review.

Naomi Zukerman, Emily Bottone, Maya Low and 1 others

PMID 38476963

WHAT IT FOUND

Resilience in teens with neurodevelopmental disabilities relies on emotional regulation, social competence, and family support.

Current interventions target these but miss key factors like self-advocacy and caregiver well-being. Online and group formats may improve accessibility.

Key findings

01Social and emotional competence, optimism, and emotional regulation were the most salient individual resilience factors for adolescents with neurodevelopmental disabilities.

02Existing interventions often fail to address critical factors such as self-advocacy, confidence, and the specific resilience needs of caregivers.

03Stakeholders identified online delivery and group sessions as beneficial formats for improving accessibility and shared experience in resilience interventions.

STILL TO COME

How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTsWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs

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What it does not show

The search may have missed relevant papers if they used different terminology for resilience. The database selection (five health-focused databases) may have introduced bias towards health literature, potentially missing studies in education or social work domains. Stakeholder consultation involved individual interviews rather than a group discussion, which might have limited the generation of new themes. No clinical experts were included in the stakeholder consultation. The review included a small number of intervention studies (n=6), limiting the strength of conclusions about efficacy.

Declared interests

One author (TO) is supported by the Kids Brain Health Network, the Foundation of the Jewish Rehabilitation Hospital, and the Fonds de Recherche du Québec Santé. The paper does not state if these funders designed the study or wrote the manuscript.

The easy way to misread this

Do not interpret the general positive findings of the six included intervention studies as proof that current resilience programs are effective for all adolescents with NDDs. Most studies focused on autism and ADHD, leaving a gap in evidence for other disabilities like cerebral palsy, and many key resilience factors like self-advocacy and caregiver well-being were rarely targeted in the interventions reviewed.

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