Parent Support

This 2019 study set out to explore how poor communication skills, as well as behavioral and emotional problems in children with autism spectrum disorder (at 22-61 months old), correlate with psychological distress in the parents. Dyads of the parents and the infant/child took part in two pilot intervention studies. The authors expected to see the children’s expressive and receptive communication skills indirectly affect parental psychological distress via emotional and behavioral issues. The results in fact indicated that the influence of receptive skills on parent psychological distress was fully mediated by child emotional difficulties. Among these young children with ASD, lower receptive skills were associated with higher levels of emotional symptoms, which in turn predicted worse psychological distress in the parents. Whereas expressive skills did not show direct or indirect effects on parental distress levels.