Biological, adopted and mixed families: the impact of the special needs child

Abstract

A model for the prediction of marital and parental satisfaction was created using degree of children's special need and family type as the predictors. The three family types examined included families with biological children only, families with adopted children only, and mixed families containing biologically-related and adopted children. Ninety-one married mothers completed surveys based on the variables in the model. Results indicated no relationship between family type and special need, but a main effect for special needs on parental satisfaction. There was also a special needs by family type interaction effect on parental satisfaction. Marital satisfaction was not predicted by special needs, but there was a significant relationship between marital satisfaction and family type. Implications of these results are explored, and future suggestions including the need for more sensitive measures for capturing potential differences between family types are discussed.