COMMUNICATION IN FAMILIES OF CHILDREN WITH INTELLECTUAL DISABILITY

The presence of a child with intellectual disability, a generic term referring to a child with mild and average learning disability in the family, induces a wide range of feelings and reactions among parents and thus may entail considerable strain on the family communication. This study investigates the levels of communication in families of children with intellectual disability and identifies some of the variables which influence those levels. The study was conducted on 264 families of children with intellectual disability in two states (provinces) in Malaysia. The findings show that a large number offamilies with intellectually disabled children experience low levels of communication in the family. In addition, this study shows that there were differences in the levels of communication in at least six measured dimensions. Out of ten dimensions used to determine the influence on the levels of family communication seven were found to contribute approximately 76.6 per cent of the variance of the levels of family communication.