BACKGROUND Pre-school age can be a stressful time for parents of a young child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Early ASD signs may become more pronounced and cause further concern, and parents may have to cope with the recent ASD diagnosis and the start of intervention services. Not surprisingly, parents of autistic pre-schoolers experience increased parenting stress (i.e., stress related to the parent role), compared with parents of pre-schoolers without ASD. METHOD 42 mothers of pre-schoolers with and without autism were observed during mother-child interaction and completed parenting behaviour questionnaires. Spearman correlations between all variables were calculated for the ASD group and the non-ASD group separately, and Linear Mixed Models were built to investigate whether parenting stress and externalising behaviour problems were similarly associated to parenting behaviours in the two groups. RESULTS Mothers of autistic pre-schoolers reported more parenting stress and more externalising behaviour problems, demonstrated fewer sensitive and more negative behaviours, and reported less stimulation of their child’s development, compared with mothers in the non-ASD group. In both groups, externalising behaviour problems were associated with negativity during observation, and parenting stress predicted reported autonomy support. CONCLUSIONS Our findings may suggest that mothers of autistic pre-schoolers are still experimenting with tuning their parenting behaviour to their child’s needs. Moreover, the association between externalising behaviour problems and negativity prompts the idea of a coercive cycle. As we found that mothers in the ASD group reported more externalising behaviour problems than mothers in the non-ASD group, management of challenging behaviour seems crucial.
Mothers of pre-schoolers with ASD: Parenting behaviours, parenting stress, and externalising behaviour problems
