Positive and challenging themes in parents' perceptions of their relationships with their child with autism: Comparison between mothers and fathers.
Shir Moshe, David Oppenheim, Michal Slonim and 3 others
PMID 37448108WHAT IT FOUND
Parents of boys with autism described their relationships using more positive themes than challenging ones, regardless of their child's symptom severity or cognitive level.
Mothers emphasized love and difficulties, while fathers highlighted joint play and guidance. Fathers alone reported limited time with the child.
Key findings
01Positive themes were mentioned by twice as many mothers and four times as many fathers as challenging themes.
02The themes parents raised were not associated with the severity of their children's symptoms or cognitive delays.
03Mothers mentioned love, tenderness, difficulties, and high involvement more often than fathers, while fathers mentioned guidance, joint play, and limited time more often.
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 only included boys, which confounds parent gender with child gender in the results. Open-ended questions mean that themes not mentioned by parents may still be relevant to their experience. The coding system counted the presence of a theme but not its salience or intensity. The sample was limited to families with at least 12 years of education, speaking fluent Hebrew, and living in Israel.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The work was supported by a grant from the Israel Science Foundation.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume that a parent's description of their relationship reflects their child's actual symptom severity or cognitive ability. The study found no association between the themes parents mentioned and the children's assessed severity or IQ scores.