Children's coping with diabetes: understanding the role of cognitive development

Asked diabetic children at two levels of cognitive maturity to describe their efforts to cope with diabetes-related stress. Results revealed certain developmental trends. Relative to more cognitively mature youngsters, the coping styles of preformal operational children showed greater emphasis on primary control coping (trying to directly change stressful conditions). Secondary control coping (trying to adjust to circumstances as they are) increased with cognitive maturity, however, overall, primary control and instrumental coping strategies appeared salient for both groups of youngsters. The nature of these developmental trends and their implications for children's disease-related adjustment are discussed.