Parental Psychological Acceptance

This measure is designed to be used as a process measure in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy research and in general in any research and practice situation where people are interested in domain-specific "acceptance". We adapted a general measure of psychological acceptance and asked parents to complete this with a focus on their child with intellectual disability. The focus of the instructions and reference to the child in the items could be changed for any childhood "disorder" group.

The core reference for this Parental Psychological Acceptance - Intellectual Disability measure is:


MacDonald, E. E., Hastings, R. P., & Fitzsimons, E. (2010). Psychological acceptance mediates the impact of the behaviour problems of children with intellectual disability on fathers’ psychological adjustment. Journal of Applied Research in Intellectual Disabilities, 23, 27-37.

We have also used the same scale in the following publication:


Jones, L., Hastings, R. P., Totsika, V., Keane, L., & Rhule, N. (2014). Child behavior problems and parental well-being in families of children with autism: The mediating role of mindfulness and acceptance. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 119, 171-185.

DOWNLOAD a copy of the questionnaire (Word file). 

Please note that item 1 is reverse scored. A total score is derived by summing the scores on all 8 items (item 1 reversed). A high score then indicates low levels of psychological acceptance in the context of the parent-child relationship.