ABSTRACT

The quantitative appraisal of the quality of family interactions is one of the most difficult areas of measurement in social science. This difficulty is illustrated by studies of epilepsy which have sought to show the existence of disturbed parental attitudes as an aetiological factor in behaviour disorder. A judgment about parental behaviour and attitudes inevitably involves value presumptions, and no study of the parents of epileptic children has attempted to place the making of these judgments on a systematic basis. Studies usually make an overall judgment, such as ‘parental attitude disturbed’, without specifying clearly what this means or how this judgment was arrived at. The studies which have reported the influence of parental attitudes on behaviour in epileptic children have been reviewed above. The conclusion from this review was that, notwithstanding the difficulty of measuring parental attitudes, some studies have apparently shown an association between disturbed behaviour in the parents and behaviour disorder in the child. Both ‘rejection’ and ‘over-protection’ on the part of parents have been implicated. The measurement of attitudes and behaviour in the parents of 118 epileptic children The available methods for studying how parents behave towards their children seem to be: (a) By a questionnaire given to the parent. This usually consists of items describing parental behaviour or feeling, which the respondent checks according to the degree of his agreement or disagreement with the statement. For example, in the Schaefer Parental Attitude Inventory (Schaefer et al., 1959) the parent is asked to agree, strongly or mildly, or disagree, strongly or mildly, to statements such as, ‘A child will be grateful later on for strict training’.1 (b) A direct observation of parent-child interaction. 1 Cf. also the questionnaire used in an English context by Gibson (1968).