Home Environment and Adjustment in Families with Handicapped Children: A Canonical Correlation Study

Abstract

The hypothesis that adjustment within the family of a handicapped child is due to more than just the presence of the child was investigated using canonical correlation. Five borne environment variables—handicapped-related events, resources available, severity of symptoms, other sources of stress, and socioeconomic status—and three adjustment variables—subjective assessment of the child's presence, marital adjustment, and maternal health—were used. Data were collected from 105 mothers of handicapped children. Two significant variates emerged with canonical correlations of .776 and .447. The total redundancy for the adjustment variables across both variates was .346. For the environment variables, the total redundancy was .251. The resources available and the number of handicapped-related events were the most important environment variables, and socioeconomic status was the least important.