Abstract

Family researchers have often reported that siblings of children with disabilities have mixed outcomes, some harmful, and some beneficial, but have neglected to investigate how the sibling relationship might be correlated with other factors, such as family cohesion. Therefore, 72 mothers and fathers raising a child with a disability and a child without a disability completed the Family Cohesion subscale of Bloom's family functioning measure and the Sibling Inventory of Behavior to determine interactions between parents' perceptions of family cohesion and sibling relationships. Results indicated that mothers and fathers' perceptions of cohesion and sibling relationships were not significantly different. Mothers' perceptions of cohesion were significantly correlated with only two aspects of sibling relationships: empathy and avoidance. Fathers' perceptions of family cohesion were independent of their perceptions of sibling relationships.

Degree

EdS

College and Department

David O. McKay School of Education; Counseling Psychology and Special Education

Rights

http://lib.byu.edu/about/copyright/

Date Submitted

2006-04-25

Document Type

Thesis

Handle

http://hdl.lib.byu.edu/1877/etd1288

Keywords

siblings, relationships, cohesion, families, disability

Language

English

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