Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

Purpose: All fifty states and the District of Columbia have statutes outlining the grounds for terminating parental rights (TPR) in relation to child abuse and neglect. Although recent research has found that parents with disabilities are not more likely to maltreat their children than parents without disabilities (Glaun & Brown, 1999; Oyserman, Mowbray, Meares, & Firminger, 2000), studies have found very high rates of TPR of parents with disabilities (Accardo & Whitman, 1989). While a cursory analysis shows that many states include parental disability as statutory grounds for TPR (National Clearinghouse for Child Abuse and Neglect, 2002), there has been no formal analysis of the inclusion of disability as grounds for TPR in state codes. Thus, the purpose of this study is to examine how states are including disability in their TPR statutes.

Methods: This study used legal document analysis, consisting of a comprehensive Boolean search of the state codes of the 50 states and D.C. relating to TPR, using the most recent state code available on Lexis-Nexis in August 2005. TPR and related statutes were searched for contemporary and historical disability related terms and their common cognates, such as: “mental”, “disability”, “handicap”, and “incapacity”. Two researchers independently conducted the searches, and the searches were reconciled. A code list was then developed to measure for inclusion of disability, preciseness, scope, use of language, and references to accessibility or fairness. Statutes were then reanalyzed, and groupings developed.

Results: Thirty-six states included disability-related grounds for termination of parental rights, while 15 states did not include disability language as grounds for termination. All of the states that include disability in their grounds for termination specify explicit types of disabilities for courts to consider, including mental illness (36 states), intellectual or developmental disability (32 states), emotional illness (18 states), and physical disability (7 states). Many of these state codes used outdated terminology, imprecise definitions, and emphasized disability status rather than behavior. All of the fifteen states that do not include disability in TPR grounds allowed for termination based on neglectful parental behavior that may be influenced by a disability.

Implications: Parents with disabilities may be discriminated against in TPR proceedings if courts remove children on the basis of parental disability, rather than on the basis of parental behavior. States should reconsider the inclusion of disability in TPR codes. At the very minimum, states should update the disability-related terminology and definitions in their TPR codes.

Accardo, P. J., & Whitman, B. Y. (1989). Factors influencing child abuse/neglect in children of mentally retarded parents. Pediatric Research, 25, 95. Glaun, D. E., & Brown, P. F. (1999). Motherhood, intellectual disability and child protection: Characteristics of a court sample. Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disability, 24(1), 95-105. National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information. (2002). Grounds for termination of parental rights. Washington, DC: National Clearninghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information. Oyserman, D., Mowbray, C. T., Meares, P., & Firminger, K. B. (2000). Parenting among mothers with a serious mental illness. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 70(3), 296-315.