Having a parent in prison can be more stressful for a child than having parents die or become divorced, according to a new University of California, Irvine, study that was scheduled to be presented at the American Sociological Association meeting last week.
Analyzing data from the 2011-12 National Survey of Children’s Health, a representative sample of children 17 and younger, the study found higher rates of attention deficits, behavioral problems, speech and language delays, and other developmental delays in children of the incarcerated.
Rates of attention deficits were higher among them than among children of divorced or dead parents.
