Parenting stress in raising autistic children

Abstract

A review of the literature documents the absence of research on the parents of autistic children as copers in a chronic stressful life situation. The 46 parents of 23 autistic children (ages 7–14) were given a series of self-report measures: Overall parenting difficulty associated with raising their autistic child, number of parenting tasks performed primarily by each parent, division of overall parenting burden between father and mother, fairness of and satisfaction with this division, and personal life satisfaction. Findings were consistent with a cognitive appraisal orientation to the stressor-stress reaction relationship. The best predictor of life satisfaction for fathers was the absolute parenting burden they were assuming, and for mothers it was the relative burden. The latter finding was attributed to the different parenting roles of men and women in society.