The porridge-like framework: A multidimensional guidance to support parents of children with developmental disabilities

•Early interventions in child disability should include active parental engagement.•Different parental interventions exist and they respond to different parenting needs.•We propose a pragmatical model to guide decision-making in child disability.•This model is grounded on a multi-dimensional view of parenting and child disability.•The porridge-like framework may promote a shared culture of parenting in child disability. Parents of children with developmental disabilities face many daily challenges that can lead to emotional and affective problems, difficulties in caregiving, and partial mental representations about themselves and their children. The multi-faceted nature of these parents’ needs requires a multi-component approach that should include the analysis of priority support goals and the planning of tailored therapeutic actions. Despite different types of validated interventions are available, the choice of the most appropriate strategy to pursue a family-centered approach to support parents of infants with developmental disabilities is not obvious. In this scenario, we propose a multi-dimensional model, the porridge-like framework of parenting. It considers three interrelated domains in parents' experience – affective (A), behavioral (B), and cognitive (C) aspects – that are intertwined with the specific degree of the child's impairment (D). This ABCD model may provide professionals with pragmatically valid guidance to plan and deliver family-centered healthcare interventions. By covering the multi-dimensional nature of parenting challenges, it provides clinicians with conceptual categories to recognize the specific needs and to choose the most suitable therapeutic action to address them. In addition, it aims to promote an ethical approach to family-centered rehabilitation for children with developmental disabilities, maximizing the potentials of a collaborative assessment approach.