A Parent’s Guide: Improving the well-being of young children with learning disabilities

This booklet has been created to help parents support the well-being of their young child with a learning disability (aged 0 to 5).

The information in the booklet comes from research by a team at the University of Warwick (Samantha, Vaso and Richard). With our colleagues, we have been studying the well-being of families of children with a learning disability for over 20 years. This booklet draws on our research, and has a specific focus on child well-being. The family activities that are described in the booklet have been shown to be important for improving well-being for children with a learning disability.

We also asked parents of children with a learning disability to describe how they actually do these family activities. We have included some of their stories in this booklet. Some of the parents who contributed their stories have children who are young (between the ages of 0 and 5), just like the parents for whom this book has been developed. Their stories illustrate how parents nowadays handle some of the stuff that research evidence has shown to support child well-being. Some parents we spoke to have children who are a lot older, but they reflected back to the days when their children were younger. These parents have the benefit of hindsight: they are able to reflect on what was important and what less so, and share some of their reflections with parents who are now raising their young child with a learning disability.