in addition the way the family function in response to the child disability has a critical relationship to family outcomes researchers have noted that marital and family functioning may be far more important predictors of parenting stress and depression that the presence or absence of childhood disability abbeduto found that diagnosis-specific differences in parents stress disappeared when child behavior parents coping style maternal education family income age of the child and number of children in the family were controlled found when controlling for marital quality neither child functioning nor child behavior were significant predictors of maternal and paternal depressive symtoms or parents stress smith oliver and innocenti noted that although poor social skills in the child were a predictor of parent stress family functioning was a much stronger predictor the causal directions between stress and family functioning cannot be determined from these findings yet these studies point to the need for practitioners to pay attention to parental relationships and overall family functioning because these can be important risk factors for parent stress