Short Report: An Examination of Children's Autism Traits and Their Association With Family Experience.
Ella C Brouwer, Melissa Susko, Charee Botha and 26 others
Higher autism trait impact predicted more parental strain, and higher trait frequency predicted more overall family difficulty, in the first year after diagnosis.
Age and child gender made no difference. Cross-sectional and self-reported, so association, not cause.
Key findings
1How much a child's autism traits impact daily life was significantly associated with parent experience difficulties (p = 0.002, β = 0.28): the greater the impact, the harder parents found being a parent of an autistic child.
2How often a child's autism traits occurred was significantly associated with overall family life difficulties (p < 0.001, β = 0.40): the more frequent the traits, the more strained family life was.
3Child age and gender were not significantly associated with either parent experience or family life scores (all p's > 0.63 for parent experience; all p's > 0.20 for family life).
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they found
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What it does not show
One time point only: the study cannot show whether traits cause family strain or whether family strain changes how parents perceive their child's traits. The same parent rated both the child's traits and the family experience, so a stressed parent may report both the child's behaviours and the family's difficulties as worse than another parent would (shared method variance). Children were aged 2–7 and diagnosed within the past year; findings may not hold for older children or families further along in their journey. Eighty-seven per cent of respondents were mothers, so the findings may primarily reflect maternal perspectives. Intellectual ability was not measured or controlled for, and the authors note that intelligence level is associated with family functioning in this population. Socioeconomic status was not included as a covariate in the analysis.
Declared interests
Funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Project #183592). The authors declare no conflicts of interest.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read this as evidence that reducing a child's autism traits will improve family life. The same parent rated both the child's traits and the family's experience, so a parent under stress may report both the child's behaviours and the family's difficulties as more severe than another parent would. The study is cross-sectional and cannot separate whether traits drive family strain or whether family strain colours how parents perceive their child's behaviours.
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