Father Involvement in Families of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)

Background: Although most family research has primarily focused on the mother-child relationship, a growing literature indicates that fathers make significant contributions to their children’s development, independent of the contributions of the mother (Parke, 2002). Beyond needs to include fathers’ own perspectives, there is a call for a more contextual research approach.  Guided primarily by family systems theory, this study elucidates how the dynamics of the mother-father relationship are associated with the father-child relationship in families with children with ASD.

Objectives: To determine: (1) the extent of agreement between mothers’ and fathers’ reports of father involvement, (2) whether fathers’ involvement differs between families of children with ASD and families with typically developing children, and (3) whether mothers’ beliefs about the fathering role relate to levels of father involvement. 

Methods:   Forty-nine parents (19 fathers and 30 mothers) participated in a mail-out, mail-back survey.  A subsample of 17 mother-father dyads had complete data.  The sample was predominantly Caucasian, well-educated, and married.  Study children were participants in a larger autism project or were clients from a university-affiliated clinic who received comprehensive evaluations. Measures tapped parental involvement and attitudes toward the fathers’ role.

Results:   (1) Using intraclass correlations, moderate levels of agreement characterized parents’ reports (n = 17) on fathers’ involvement in routine child-care (r = .53, p = .01); however, low levels of agreement characterized parents’ reports on father involvement in educational activities (r = .12, p = .31).  (2) An independent samples t-test (n = 49) revealed fathers in families with and without a child with ASD did not differ in their level of routine child-care [t(47) = -.73, p = .33] or educational involvement [t(47) = 0.91, p = .93].  Mothers undertake approximately 70% of work in both domains. (3) In aggregate analyses (n = 49), parental views endorsing greater importance of the fathering role were associated with greater father involvement only in routine child care (r =.30, p = .04).  Analyses restricted to dyadic data (n = 17) showed mothers’ beliefs regarding the importance of the fathering role were not significantly associated with fathers’ self-reported involvement in either child-care [r = .39, p = .12] or education [r = .14, p = .58].  There was 73% power to detect a large effect size.  

Conclusions:   Fathers’ involvement has been largely overlooked in research in families with children with ASD.  The two groups of families were more similar than different; in both, parental views about the fathers’ role were related to fathers’ level of involvement in routine care and education. The stressors presented by raising children with ASD may fall within average ranges of functioning (Trute et al., 2007).  Although underpowered to find small-moderate effects, findings from the current study suggest that the challenges of raising a child with ASD do not appear to lead to fathers being any more or less involved compared with fathers without an affected child.  In both samples, mothers are doing the lioness’ share of care.