International Journal of Innovative Research in Health Science

Introduction: Parents of specially-abled children are greatly involved in the care and rehabilitation of their children. For planning of support services, understanding their care-giving experience and some of the challenges they may encounter is critical. Aim: To evaluate the perception about parent's experience and difficulties with special children .Methods: Quantitative descriptive exploratory research design was opted. The research was done with fifty parents of special children who are studying in Don Guanella Special School. Convenient sampling method was used in the identification of the participants. A structured demographic questionnaire, parental experience scale and a parental challenges scale were used to gather data. Descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage) and Chi-square test were used for data analysis. Results: The respondents included high level parental experience (n = 43, 86.0%) and moderate parental experience (n = 7, 14.0%). Regarding challenges, 20 (40.0%) had a moderate level, 19 (38.0%) had a low level, and 11 (22.0%) had a high level of challenges. Conclusion: Despite moderate caregiving challenges, most parents reported high levels of caregiving experience. Enhancing parent education, counselling and family support services may be a mitigation measure to reduce caregiver difficulties and, consequently, enhance the quality of caregiving for specially abled children.