17667
Effects of Parental Stress and General Well Being, and Parent Child Interaction
Dyadic synchronous communication between parent and child is known to be related to optimal pathways of social and cognitive development from a young age. For instance, synchrony has been shown to act as a predictor of later language (Siller & Sigman, 2008; Aldred et al., 2008) and symbolic play development (Feldman & Greenbaum, 1998). Asynchrony has been, on the contrary, associated to a decreased number of language learning opportunities (Reddy et al., 1997). In the case of children with ASD, where social development follows atypical pathways, parental synchrony plays a major role in the socio‑communicative development of the child, and possible asynchrony can affect children’s development. Parents of children with ASD have been reported to have high levels of stress indicated by elevated cortisol levels and this is greater than those with children with other developmental disabilities (Dykens & Lambert, 2013). Levels of stress are related to levels of dependency functional impairment and cognitive levels in children with ASD (Koegel et al., 1992) and may compromise the parent-child relationship (Feldman & Eidelman, 2004). It is possible that such factors affect early intervention in autism (Osborne, et al., 2008).
Objectives:
To explore levels of stress and well‑being in parents whose children have been diagnosed with ASD within the last 12 months, and to see how this may be related to severity of autism symptoms. Also, to study how parental stress levels may modulate synchronous communication with their child. Lastly, to explore the indirect effects of the NAS EarlyBird group-based parenting programme (Shields, 2001) – widely used in the UK – in parental stress levels and its relation to parent-child interactions.
Methods:
Eighteen families from different boroughs in London who attended the EarlyBird programme were assessed two weeks before and after the programme (3‑months interval). Parents filled in questionnaires regarding their view of their parenting competence (PSOC), well‑being (WEMBWS) and their level of stress (PSI and APQ Stress sub‑scale). Children were assessed prior to the programme using ADOS, SRS, SCQ and Mullen Scales of Early Development. At both assessment points, families were interviewed regarding their child’s adaptive skills using the Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales and were video‑recorded playing with their child for 10mins to assess parent-child interaction following the DCMA schedule (Aldred, Green, & Adams, 2004).
Results:
At baseline, parental stress (measured with PSI) and self-confidence correlated significantly with autism symptoms from the SRS (r = .55, p = .03; r = .54, p = .04 respectively) but not with the intellectual ability of the child. All baseline measures of parental mental health were analysed in relation to the number of synchronous communicative acts during a play interaction, but no significant results were found. Post-treatment data are currently being collected.
Conclusions:
While parental stress levels seem to be highly associated with the severity of ASD, it is not with the way parents communicate with their children. It remains to be explored whether the attendance to the EarlyBird programme increases parental well‑being and if this relationship is affected by the severity of ASD.