Title: Health trajectories of mothers of children with developmental disabilities over six decades of parenting
Legend: Graphical representation of longitudinal physical and mental health trajectories in mothers of children with and without developmental disabilities from the national MIDUS study (LEFT) and mothers of children with autism from a community-based cohort study (RIGHT). Growth curve models using an accelerated longitudinal design estimated mothers’ health profiles over six decades of parenting. The health trajectories for mothers of children with developmental disabilities in the MIDUS sample were nonlinear (RED LINE, LEFT PANEL), with a period of stability in midlife followed by accelerated declines after around age 65. In contrast, change over time was more gradual and linear in nature for mothers in the MIDUS sample who did not have children without developmental disabilities (BLUE LINE, LEFT PANEL). As in the national MIDUS sample of mothers of children with developmental disabilities, age-related change for mothers of children with autism was nonlinear (RED LINE, RIGHT PANEL), with declines in physical and mental health accelerating after age 65. In both panels, the area of the 95% confidence interval is shown.
Citation: Dembo, R. S., Hong, J., DaWalt, L. S., & Mailick, M. R. (2025). Age-related trajectories of health and cognition in mothers of children with developmental disabilities: Longitudinal findings from two independent studies. Social science & medicine (1982), 372, 117912. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117912
Abstract: Developmental disabilities are a heterogenous group of disorders characterized by impairments in physical functioning, learning, language, behavior, and self-care (Zablotsky et al., 2019). Parenting a child with a developmental disability can be a profound source of stress, particularly for mothers. This atypical parenting experience can begin with the birth of the child, or soon thereafter, and continues over the life course, often extending six decades or more. However, there is limited research on the impact of this parenting role across the full adult life course – from mothers’ early years of parenting through older age. Here we draw on data from two separate studies, one a national study of mothers of children with a range of developmental conditions (n = 96) and the other a community study of mothers of children with autism (n = 391). We used an accelerated longitudinal design to estimate mothers’ trajectories of health, mental health, and cognitive functioning beginning in their 20s and extending until their 80s or beyond, and conducted a series of cohort and sensitivity analyses. Together, the results of analyses of these two studies revealed very similar patterns across a number of important outcomes. The inclusion in one of the studies of a nationally representative comparison group of mothers whose children did not have disabilities (n = 1,181) indicated that after around age 65, aging in mothers of children with developmental disabilities differed from the norm, suggesting the ‘wear-and-tear’ effects of this common form of stressful parenting.
Investigator: Marsha R. Mailick, PhD
About the Lab: The Lifespan Family Research Program is dedicated to the advancement of knowledge about families who have a member with intellectual and developmental disabilities with a special emphasis on how these families change over the lifespan. Our program of research focuses on autism, fragile X syndrome and other developmental and mental health conditions. We study cohorts of families who have generously volunteered to be members of our longitudinal research, and we are extremely grateful to them for their continued participation. In addition, we study representative population cohorts including the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, the Midlife in the United States (MIDUS) Study, and Personalized Medicine Research Project of the Marshfield Clinic.