Resilience Within Families of Young Children with ASD.
Leanne Dijkstra-de Neijs, Hanna Swaab, Ina A van Berckelaer-Onnes and 1 others
PMID 40045036WHAT IT FOUND
In families with young children with ASD, both parents often reported high parenting stress; satisfaction with social relationships was the factor most consistently associated with lower family stress.
Key findings
01Among 74 families, 36% had both parents reporting (sub)clinical parenting stress, 32% had both parents reporting regular stress, 22% had mothers reporting (sub)clinical stress and fathers reporting regular stress, and 9% had fathers reporting (sub)clinical stress and mothers reporting regular stress.
02In regression models, maternal parenting stress was related to mothers’ planning and organizing skills and satisfaction with social relations; paternal stress was related to fathers’ worrying and satisfaction with social relations.
03Higher satisfaction with social relations in both parents was associated with lower family parenting stress.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The study was cross-sectional, so it could not show that planning, worrying, or social relationships caused lower stress. It did not test an intervention, so it cannot say what therapists should do to reduce stress. Parents were recruited from mental health care providers shortly after diagnosis, which may not represent all families with young children with ASD. Only single parents or one mother and one father were present, so findings may not apply to other family structures. Resilience was measured through selected psychological and contextual variables, and may not cover all relevant factors. The study used a psychological perspective and did not examine physical health mechanisms. Families were not asked their preferences for autism terminology.
Declared interests
The study was funded by Foundation VCVGZ and the Korczak Foundation for Autism and Related Disorders. The supplied text does not report author conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read these results as proof that improving parents’ social relationships will reduce parenting stress. The study was cross-sectional and measured associations, so it cannot show that any factor caused lower stress or that an intervention would work.
Summarised by AI from the full paper, without a clinician reviewing it. Check it against the source before it changes what you do. Read it on PubMed →