The attitudes of typically developing adolescents towards their sibling with autism spectrum disorder.
Christine Van der Merwe, Juan Bornman, Dana Donohue and 1 others
PMID 28470082WHAT IT FOUND
Adolescent siblings of children with autism spectrum disorder reported more positive feelings and beliefs now than they remembered when younger.
Reported positive behaviour did not change.
Key findings
01Adolescents rated their current feelings towards their sibling with autism spectrum disorder significantly higher than the feelings they recalled having as a child.
02Adolescents rated their current beliefs about the relationship significantly higher than the beliefs they recalled having as a child.
03Adolescents did not rate current positive behavioural interactions significantly differently from the positive behavioural interactions they recalled having as a child.
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 sample was only 30 adolescents, so the findings may not represent siblings across South Africa. The study used two special schools and sibling support days as the recruitment setting. Participants reported their own attitudes, and responses may have been shaped by what they thought was appropriate rather than by what they actually felt. Past attitudes were collected by asking adolescents to remember how they felt when younger, not by following them over time. The cognition subscale was reduced from eight items to seven items because of missing data.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that the adolescents' attitudes changed because of any intervention. The study measured self-reported attitudes at a single point in time and asked them to recall childhood attitudes.