Research On The Self-Stigma Of The Parents Of Children With Intellectual Disabilities And Its Influencing Factors

Stigma refers to social processes such as labeling,stereotyping and so on in a power situation.People with intellectual disabilities will suffer stigma in their daily lives,that is,mainstream social groups often treat them by labeling or stereotyping,which in turn triggers a series of behaviors,such as discrimination and exclusion.In fact,not only people with intellectual disabilities will be stigmatized,but their parents will also be stigmatized,including suffering public criticism and blame.Once parents internalize this kind of public opposition or criticism,which may trigger subsequent corresponding emotional reactions,which is so-called “affiliate stigma”.Not only does affiliate stigma influence the attitude of the parents towards their children and the development of children,but also affects the quality of life of the parents.This research aims to investigate the condition of explicit and implicit self-stigma of the parents of children with intellectual disabilities and its influencing factors and explore effective strategies to alleviate the level of their self-stigma,which may contribute to create a healthy parenting environment for children with intellectual disabilities,create a harmonious family-school communication environment and promote their parents’ mental health status.There are three sections in this research.The first section aims to explore the explicit self-stigma of the parents of children with intellectual disabilities.The 22-item Affiliate Stigma Scale of Chinese version was used to measure the level of explicit self-stigma of 101 parents.The result shows:（1）Generally,the parents tend to internalize negative public evaluations.They are very easy to feel embarrassed and desperate because of negative public evaluations,but they are not easy to show the behaviors such as social withdrawal and lowering themselves because of internalized stigma.（2）Father and mother have difference in the level of explicit self-stigma.（3）The explicit self-stigma of the parents is mainly influenced by the factors of children and family.The second section aims to explore the implicit self-stigma of the parents with intellectual disabilities.The single-category implicit association test was used to measure the implicit self-stigma of 34 parents.The result shows:（1）Generally,34 parents are more willing to associate their identities with positive words unconsciously,may not have the implicit self-stigma.（2）The implicit self-stigma of parents has no difference in parents’ gender and age variables.The third section aims to investigate the self-stigma experience of parents of children with intellectual disabilities.The interview outline was compiled by myself to deeply probe into the self-stigma experience of 6 parents,including the performance of selfstigma,the sources of self-stigma,the internalization process of stigma,and the relationship between parents’ self-stigma and children’s education,so as to explore the influencing factors of self-stigma.The result shows:（1）In terms of performance,the parents have a correct understanding of the negative public evaluation,have negative emotional experiences,and have positive coping behaviors.（2）In terms of sources,the self-stigma of the parents is mainly influenced by public stigma;it is also influenced by children’s condition through the process of social comparison.（3）In the relationship with children’s education,the self-stigma of parents will affect their parenting patterns;school’s acceptance will affect the self-stigma of parents.Finally,according to these three sections of research,several suggestions on reducing the level of self-stigma of parents and creating a healthy family parenting environment were put forward from the perspectives of public,parents and schools.The shortcomings of this research were analyzed to offer corresponding suggestions for the related research in the future.