Parental interactions with children with and without mental retardation: behavior management, coerciveness, and positive exchange.

The in-home interactions of mothers and fathers with their school-age children were compared in families of children with mild or moderate mental retardation (n = 53) and families of children without mental retardation (n = 51). Consistent with expectations, the parents of children with mental retardation were relatively more controlling and less playful with their child. However, they also employed effective behavior management practices without resorting to coercive control strategies. Further, 24 to 51% of the variance in interaction processes were predicted by a set of risk factors common to both groups, with the status of the child as having or not having mental retardation accounting for relatively little unique variance.