Summary

This chapter has reported on a variety of perceptions reported by youth with disabilities regarding their personal relationships. For the most part, youth report having strong, positive relationships with their parents; 8 in 10 say they feel very cared for by their parents and 6 in 10 say they receive a lot of attention from them. Parents also are the people youth with disabilities are most likely to rely on for support.

School staff figure prominently as sources of support for some youth; one-fourth report actively turning to teachers for support, and almost one-fifth rely heavily on guidance counselors. Clerics are an important part of the support system for about one-fourth of youth. About half of youth with disabilities report they feel very cared about by friends, and three-fourths say they can find a friend when they need one and can make friends easily. Friends are an important source of support for 4 in 10 youth with disabilities.

Despite these overall positive findings, a small minority of youth with disabilities report quite negative views of their personal relationships. For example, 3 percent report they feel their parents care about them "very little or not at all," and more than twice that percentage say they are paid attention to by their families that little.

There are few statistically significant differences in the views regarding relationships with parents, other adults, and friends, expressed by youth with disabilities and youth in the general population. Among the few differences that are evident, youth with disabilities are more likely than youth in the general population to report receiving a lot of attention from their parents, and they are less likely to report that they rely on friends for support to a great degree. Further, youth with disabilities are more likely than those in the general population to have strongly negative views of their personal relationships; although fewer than 1 in 12 report these feelings, youth with disabilities are more likely to report that they felt both lonely and disliked most or all of the time in the preceding week.

The majority of youth in all disability categories report positive views of their personal relationships, although differences, particularly in the strength of feelings, are apparent between groups. For example, youth with mental retardation are more likely than those in several other categories to report being cared about by parents and other adults "very little" or "not at all." Similarly, youth with autism are less likely than youth in virtually all other categories to say they can find a friend when they need one or to be confident they can make friends easily.

A few differences in youth with disabilities' perceptions of their personal relationships are apparent for youth whose demographic characteristics differ. For example, there are gender and racial/ethnic differences in sources of support indicating that both females and White youth with disabilities rely on friends more actively than do males and African American youth.

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