Stories of life transition: Subjective well-being and ego development in parents of children with Down syndrome

Eighty-seven parents of children with Down Syndrome (DS; 63 women, 24 men) wrote narratives about finding out that their child had DS and completed qu estionnaire measures of subjective well-being (SWB) and stress-related grow th and completed the Sentence Completion Test as a measure of ego developme nt. Forty-two of these individuals participated in a follow-up 2 pears late r. Foreshadowing and happy endings in the stories were related to heightene d SWB at both time periods. Evidence of accommodative change-actively exper iencing a paradigmatic shift-was related to stress-related growth and ego d evelopment at both time periods. A high sense of closure and accommodation in the stories was associated with the highest levels of stress-related gro wth. Implications for research on well-being and personal growth are discus sed. (C) 2000 Academic Press.