Parental criticism and behavior problems in children with autism spectrum disorder.
Jason K Baker, Rachel M Fenning, Mariann A Howland and 1 others
PMID 30394790WHAT IT FOUND
Parental criticism linked to behavior problems in children with autism, but the effect depended on context.
Criticism predicted internalizing issues only when parental warmth was moderate, not high. It predicted externalizing issues only in children with moderate or high physiological stress reactivity.
Key findings
01Parental criticism was associated with child externalizing behavior problems, accounting for 29% of the variance in regression models.
02High parental warmth appeared to buffer the link between criticism and internalizing problems; criticism predicted these issues only when warmth was moderate.
03The link between criticism and externalizing problems depended on the child's physiological reactivity; it was significant for children with average or high electrodermal activity but not for those with low reactivity.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The sample size (40 analysed) was modest for detecting interaction effects. The study was cross-sectional, so it identifies associations rather than causality. Child behavior problems were measured by parent report, which may introduce bias. There was no comparison group of children without ASD. Parental warmth was uniformly moderate or high, limiting the ability to study low warmth.
Declared interests
The research was supported by the National Institute of Mental Health and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. No specific conflicts of interest were declared in the text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that reducing criticism is universally beneficial or that warmth is lacking in these families. The study found no low-warmth families, and the harmful effects of criticism were conditional on other factors like child reactivity and warmth levels.