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Forty-one mothers and twenty-seven fathers agreed to participate in a 6-week, low-cost, multiple-family psychoeducational intervention in Spain. Their knowledge acquisition, subjective distress, annoyance at patient's behavior, perception of social impact of the patient's illness, expectations about patient's recovery, and family burden were measured before and after the intervention and at 9-month follow-up. Ninety-three percent of the fathers and 78% of the mothers attended four or more classes. Although parents acquired a significant amount of knowledge about the illness, no significant score differences were found immediately after the intervention or at follow-up in the other measures. However, significant father-mother differences were revealed. Compared with mothers, fathers were more optimistic throughout the study about the outcome of the illness, became more aware of the social and financial impact of the illness on the family, and reported feeling less annoyed by the patient's behavior at follow-up. The results indicate that low-cost psychoeducational multiple family groups alone do not decrease family distress and burden. These findings also suggest that psychoeducational interventions need to consider differences in gender and family roles and underline the importance of engaging fathers in treatment.

The sleep patterns of 45 mothers of children with moderate to severe multiple disabilities, 45 mothers of children with Down syndrome, and 45 mothers of typically developing children were compared by means of a 7-day diary. The children ranged in age from 6 months to 5 years. The Caregiver's Activity and Recording of Events (CARE) Inventory was completed by each subject to record mothers' activities in half-hour segments throughout a 24-hour day. Activities were coded into nine categories including rest/sleep. The three groups of mothers were compared on total hours of rest/sleep per day, number of sleep interruptions, reason for sleep interruptions, influences of siblings of target children, and number of times the father attended to the target child during the night as perceived by the mother. Surprisingly, the results indicated that mothers of children with multiple disabilities reported more sleep than did mothers in the other two groups. There were no significant differences found among the groups in the following: amount of weekly daytime sleep; frequency and duration of child-related interruptions per week; number of nights of uninterrupted sleep per week; maximum number of sleep interruptions in one night; and mothers' perception of fathers' nighttime assistance. The data indicated that many mothers in all three groups experienced numerous weekly sleep interruptions, particularly mothers of infants 6 to 12 months of age. Professionals working with mothers of young children must consider the effects of shortened and interrupted sleep patterns on the day time functioning and health of mothers and the effect on the well-being of the entire family.

Children who encounter difficulties in the major childhood occupation of academic learning are often identified as having learning disabilities. The Motor-Free Test of Visual Perception Revised (MVPT-R) is a standardized assessment frequently used by occupational therapists to measure a child's visual perceptual skills that contribute to successful learning. Although the MVPT-R has been revised with additional normative data and test items, no validity studies using different populations have been reported. The present study investigated the ability of the MVPT-R to differentiate between children with learning disabilities and matched control children. Two groups of 38 children (7–10 years of age) were compared on their MVPT-R scores. Results of t-test analyses showed children with learning disabilities: 1) scored significantly lower on MVPT-R raw (p = 0.01), perceptual quotient (p = 0.005), and perceptual age (p = 0.02) scores, and 2) had a significantly greater percentage of children scoring below criterion cutoff than control children.