Sibling Attitudes

Exploring sibling attitudes towards participation when the younger sibling has a severe speech and language disability

We were delighted to receive this publication from a friend and colleague, Prof Juan Bornman from Pretoria in South Africa. It reports on a study carried out with 27 typically developing children who have a younger sibling with a severe speech and language disability. Juan and her colleagues used Talking Mats to carried out an adapted structured interview to find out the views of these children on four everyday life situations identified by the WHO-ICF-CY (World Health Organisation’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health, Children and Youth Version).

The four topics were:
Communication
Domestic life
Interpersonal interaction and relationships
Major life areas.

The findings showed that the children were ‘most positive towards participation in play activities with their sibling with a disability. They were also positive towards participation in household tasks. They were less positive towards communication participation and least positive about participation in interpersonal relationships’.

The following example is taken from Juan’s publication.

The overall findings suggest that the attitudes of the young children in the study towards participation with their younger siblings with severe speech and language disabilities were generally positive.

The article’s reference is:
Exploring sibling attitudes towards participation when the younger sibling has a severe speech and language disability. M Hansen, M Harty, J Bornman  South African Journal of Child Health 2016 Vol. 10 No. 1

To read the full publication with details of the methods used and the results click here sibling-attitudes-2016