Harsh Parenting and Trajectories of Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties in Autistic Children.
Georgia Cronshaw, Emily Midouhas
PMID 37925383WHAT IT FOUND
In autistic children, higher maternal harsh parenting was linked to more behavioural problems, but not emotional ones.
Children exposed to high levels of smacking and shouting saw their total difficulties rise from borderline to abnormal by age 7.
Key findings
01A one unit increase in harsh parenting was associated with a 0.38 increase in externalising problems scores.
02Harsh parenting did not predict internalising problems in autistic children.
03At high levels of harsh parenting, total difficulties increased from 'borderline' at age 3 to 'abnormal' by age 7.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for OTsWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study is correlational, so it cannot prove that harsh parenting causes behavioural problems; children with difficult behaviours may also elicit harsher parenting. All data was parent-reported, which may inflate correlations due to shared method variance or social desirability bias. Only maternal harsh parenting was measured, ignoring the potential role of fathers. The autistic sample was predominantly male (77.9%), so results may not generalise well to autistic girls. The internalising problems scale had low internal consistency, which may have obscured a true relationship with harsh parenting.
Declared interests
The paper states that the Millennium Cohort Study data are freely accessible and that the study received ethical approval. No specific funding sources or author conflicts of interest are declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that reducing harsh parenting will automatically improve a child's emotional well-being or reduce anxiety/depression, as this study found no significant link between harsh parenting and internalising problems in autistic children.