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Family Wellness in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: a Balanced Approach

  • Intellectual Disability (Y Lunsky, Section Editor)
  • Published:
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Abstract

Purpose of Review

The current review explores the state of the literature on wellness among families living with intellectual or developmental disability (IDD).

Recent Findings

Though wellness is often defined as a process of striving for and achieving positive health, quality of life and subjective wellbeing, much of the literature on wellness in IDD has centred on struggle and negative outcomes, including experiences of stress, crisis, and mental health problems. More recent work reveals that families living with IDD are not simply fraught with negativity, and that positive experiences, such as hope, optimism, and cohesiveness, are important aspects of wellness.

Summary

Many promising interventions have emerged to support the mental health of families, ultimately approaching wellness in a manner that contains both adaptive and maladaptive processes and outcomes. The current review provides an overview of this literature, describes evidence-based interventions in this context, and highlights areas for future research.

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Notes

  1. We recognize that there are many viewpoints with respect to selecting terms and language to describe autism and other disabilities. We use identity-first language here to reflect the preference of many autistic adults and their family members [9, 10]. At other times, we use person-first language (i.e., people with IDD), and do so equally with respect.

Abbreviations

IDD:

Intellectual and developmental disabilities

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major importance

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, Canada

    Jonathan A. Weiss, Diana Tajik-Parvinchi, Andrea L. Maughan & Johanna Lake

  2. Adult Neurodevelopmental Services, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Canada

    Johanna Lake

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  1. Jonathan A. Weiss
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  2. Diana Tajik-Parvinchi
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  3. Andrea L. Maughan
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Correspondence to Jonathan A. Weiss.

Ethics declarations

Dr. Jonathan Weiss was supported by the Chair in Autism Spectrum Disorders Treatment and Care Research, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research in partnership with Autism Speaks Canada, the Canadian Autism Spectrum Disorders Alliance, Health Canada, Kids Brain Health Network (formerly NeuroDevNet), and the Sinneave Family Foundation. Additional funds from York University.

Conflict of Interest

Diana Tajik-Parvinchi, Andrea Maughan, and Johanna Lake declare no conflict of interests.

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This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

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This article is part of the Topical Collection on Intellectual Disability

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Weiss, J.A., Tajik-Parvinchi, D., Maughan, A.L. et al. Family Wellness in Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities: a Balanced Approach. Curr Dev Disord Rep 5, 157–164 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40474-018-0145-2

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