WORKING WITH PARENTS WHO HAVE COGNITIVE LIMITATIONS

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): People with developmental disabilities are increasingly assuming typical adult roles and responsibilities such as employee, community citizen, and neighbor. Perhaps the greatest challenge for people with cognitive disabilities, however, is in the role of parent. Families where one or both parents have cognitive disabilities can be successful if supports are available to them. Professionals in schools, community health, and social work need to know how to identify and effectively work with parents who may be hesitant to seek their support. The goal of this project is to develop a media training program for each of three groups on how to identify and effectively support parents who have cognitive limitations. The proposed program will feature both an instructional component and an outreach component for health care providers, for social workers, and for elementary school teachers. The outreach kit, containing a poster, a flyer, and press copy, will introduce professionals to the need for training and direct them toward the proposed instructional materials, consisting of a video and a companion viewer guide. In Phase I, the instructional component for elementary teachers will be developed and evaluated, Instructional goals include: developing teacher awareness about parents with cognitive limitations, imparting an understanding of the importance of and ways for building respectful working relationships with parents, increasing teacher skills in supporting self-determination, and improving teacher communication with parents. An instrument to assess knowledge and skills will be developed and used to evaluate the effectiveness of the instructional materials during a study conducted with 40 elementary school teachers. In Phase II, the instructional components for health care providers and social workers, as well as outreach kits for each group, will be produced.