Abstract
The study aimed to assess the Stability of Communication Deviance
of 166 adoptive families recruited into the Finnish adoptive family
study, including 76 high-risk children and 90 controls. The biological
mothers of the high- risk children had been schizophrenic at some
stage.
The Communication Deviance shown by the adoptive parents and
the adopted children was evaluated on the individual and family
Rorschach Communication Deviance (CD) scales and, in the case of
the parents, also the couple Rorschach tests. The thought disorders
of the adopted children were evaluated on the Thought Disorder scale.
The following statistical tests were used: χ2 -compatibility
test, Spearman correlation test and Mann - Whitney U -test,
logistic regression analysis and Mantel - Haenzel stratified χ2 test
to compare the cross-tabulations.
Communication Deviance was notably permanent in a variety
of interactive situations. The parents showed most permanence between
individual and couple Rorschach tasks and spouse and the family tasks.
The presence of the children altered parental communication and
the presence of the parents altered the children's communication:
the impact was circular, and its magnitude depended on the clarity
of communication by both parties. A high risk adoptee did not affect
of Communication Deviance shown by the adoptive parents, except
in family situations. The adoptive parents of high-risk children were
more sensitive to the child's presence and showed abundant
family CD more often than the control parents. Most of the adoptive
parents of high-risk children produced a lot of CD in all situations studied,
which implies that Communication Deviance is a circular phenomenon,
whereby the child further enhances the basically incoherent communication
between the parents.The control children's thought disorders
were related to the compatibility of the adoptive parents' Communication
Deviance, and to the degree of parental CD in couple and family
tasks while those of the high-risk children were not. Part of the
adopted children's thought disorders were more closely related
to genetic vulnerability, being predicted by parental Communication
Deviance in individual situations, but not in couple or family situations.
Communication Deviance is so permanent as to be largely resistant
to therapy. Constantly ambiguous parental communication is an environmental
factor in a child's life and interferes with the development
of his or her thinking. By behavioral therapy we can learn to make
family communication less ambiguous.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:oulo.fi/oai:oulu.fi:isbn951-42-5698-0 |
| Date | 20 June 2000 |
| Creators | Keskitalo, P. (Pirjo) |
| Publisher | University of Oulu |
| Source Sets | University of Oulu |
| Language | Finnish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess, © University of Oulu, 2000 |
| Relation | info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/pissn/0355-3221, info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/eissn/1796-2234 |
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