“They are not their diagnostic!” Parents perceptions of character strengths of their children with disabilities

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Developmental Disabilities

Abstract

Introduction: A positive youth development framework indicates that for young people to thrive seems necessary to promote opportunities that can help them achieve their full potential. Especially for children with disabilities, the change of perspective from deficits is a necessary goal. However, in Brazilian settings, the concept of a positive approach for youth with disabilities is still a recent idea, with a gap of knowledge into this approach. Therefore, the goal of this study was to explore how family members of children with disabilities perceived their character strengths.
Methods: Participated in the study were 137 relatives (80.5% fathers, 3.9% mothers, 14,3% grandmothers/grandfathers, 1.3% stepfather/mother, mean age=40.4, s.d=14.81) of children (mean age 11.10 years,sd=4.54) with disabilities attending 60 public and private elementary schools in Brazil. Measures were obtained about their sociodemographic data and about their children regarding positive character strengths using adapted VIA Youth items (Park & Peterson, 2003) in a scale between 1-5: self-regulation (Example: My child is able to control his anger very well; α(4 items)=.64), bravery(i.e.‘Take action when you see someone treating others badly’α(4 items)=.67), teamwork(i.e. ‘Helps a lot when working in groups’, α(4 items)=.81), justice(i.e. ‘Treat everyone with respect, even when he/she won’t like them.’ α(4 items)=.85), and hope (i.e. ‘He/she is sure that he/she can overcome bad times’,α(4 items)=.87). Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and comparing means between the variables of the study and SES indicators.
Results and Conclusions: Preliminary Analysis indicate a wide range of disabilities was reported, including 54.0% children with visual impairments, 3.6% with physical disabilities, 17.5% with intellectual disabilities, 6.6% with hearing impairments, 7.3% with two or more disabilities, and 10.9% with other disabilities. The results indicate hope as the character strength that parents perceived with higher means between those variables(mean=4.00, sd=1.03). All the measures of character strengths were positively associated with each other. This could represent that caregivers who tend to perceive positive character strengths in their children are more likely to see the overall qualities of their kids. Hope also presented differences between parents who attend college and those who didn’t, with higher means for family members with lower academic qualification (t(107)=2.527;p<0,05). Therefore, the mindset of caregivers could be influenced by other experiences, that are not circumscribed in academic life. Given these results, seems necessary to promote research and practices that help parents change the mindset about their children, above and beyond academic knowledge.

Authors

• Hellen Tsuruda Amaral, Universidade Estadual do Paraná
  Presenting Author

• Lidia Natalia Dobrianskyj Weber, Federal University of Parana
  Non-Presenting Author

• Josafá M. Da Cunha, Federal University of Parana
  Non-Presenting Author