Aryadoust, Vahid

Background: Developmental disabilities have been largely studied in the past years. Their etiological mechanisms have been underpinned to the interactions between genetic and environmental factors. These factors show variability across the world. Thus, it is important to understand where the set of knowledge obtained on developmental disabilities originates from and whether it is generalizable to low- and middle-income countries. Aims: This study aims to understand the origins of the available literature on developmental disabilities, keeping a focus on parenting, and identify the main trend of research. Methods and Procedure: A sample of 11,315 publications from 1936 to 2020 were collected from Scopus and a graphical country analysis was conducted. Furthermore, a qualitative approach enabled the clustering of references by keywords into four main areas: “Expression of the disorder”, “Physiological Factors”, “How it is studied” and “Environmental factors”. For each area, a document co-citation analysis (DCA) on CiteSpace software was performed. Outcomes and Results: Results highlight the leading role of North America in the study of developmental disabilities. Trends in the literature and the documents’ scientific relevance are discussed in details. Conclusions and Implications: Results demand for investigation in different socio-economical settings to generalize our knowledge.