This study was carried out to examine the necessity of family care arbitration for the problems of developmental disability children, and to find out the degree of stress and family function due to upbringing the children according to the mother's characteristics. The enquette was performed for 119 mothers of developmental disability children referred to a college hospital in April, 1994. The results are as follows; I. In 3 areas of stress from upbringing the children, the degree of stress in the area of parents showed the relationship between the family types. 2. In the characteristics of developmental disability children, the degree of management adapta-bility significantly affected the stress in the area of parents and it seemed to be a decisive factor to determine the family types 3. In the characteristics of developmental disability children's mothers, the factors such as the satisfaction at cure results and the personnel involved in cure were predominant. Besides the health status of mothers themselves and their husbands' cooperation influenced the family types between harmonized and extreme ones.