The Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Training onParent-child Interaction and Rumination of Mothers withChildren with Intellectual Disabilities

Living with a child with intellectual disability is very challenging for parents, especially mothers as the main caregivers. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effectiveness of emotion regulation training on parent-child interaction and rumination of mothers with children with intellectual disabilities.

The current study was a quasi-experimental type with a pre-test and post-test design with a control group. The statistical population included all mothers with children with intellectual disabilities who referred to Exceptional schools in Rasht city in the academic year of 2018-2019. Among these, a sample of 30 people was selected by the available method, taking into account the entry and exit criteria, then they were randomly assigned to two experimental (n=15) and control (n=15) groups, and completed the parent-child interaction questionnaires of Pianta (1994) and rumination questionnaires of Nolen- Hoeksema (1991). The intervention program was based on 8 sessions of 90 minutes of emotion regulation training based on Gross's (2002) emotion regulation model, which was implemented by the researcher for mothers of children with intellectual disabilities. The obtained data were processed using Univariate and Multivariate covariance analysis.

Emotion regulation training was significantly effective on increasing parent-child interaction and closeness component and reducing conflict and dependence components of mothers with children with intellectual disabilities (P<0.05). Also, this training was effective in reducing the rumination of the mothers of these children (P<0.01).

These results have important direct and implicit clinical applications in the field of increasing parent-child interaction and reducing rumination in mothers with intellectual disabilities children through emotion regulation training.