THE FUNCTION OF ONSET AND OFFSET RESPONSIBILITY PERCEPTIONS IN FATHERS AND MOTHERS ADJUSTMENT TO THEIR CHILDS DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITY

An attributional analysis of the adjustment of Finnish mothers (n = 14 0) and fathers (n = 111) to their children's developmental disability was investigated. Parents' perceptions of responsibility for the onset (cf., origin) and offset (cf., improvement) of the child's disability and their feelings of guilt and hope were expected to predict their a djustment (acceptance of their offspring's condition and the frequency of their involvement with the child). As expected, responsibility for the disability onset was related to guilt, whereas responsibility for offset was associated with hope. Guilt decreased, whereas hope increa sed, parents' acceptance of the disability and involvement with the ch ild. The results of path analyses suggested that the relationship betw een parental responsibility perceptions and adjustment indices is medi ated, at least in part, by guilt and hope. These cognition-emotion lin kages were proposed to clarify the relation between attributional inte rpretations of disability and psychological adjustment.