Background and aims

The daily challenges of caring for a child with autism spectrum disorder affect many areas of everyday life and parental well-being, as well as parents’ ability to manage the needs of the family and the child concerned. A better understanding of parents’ perception of their child’s characteristics can allow better support for them and individualize intervention protocols in a more accurate way. The main objective of this study is the evaluation of the perception of stress by parents of children with autism compared to parents of children with specific language impairment.

Methods

The parents of 87 children aged between 2 and 6 years were included in this study, 34 children with a specific language impairment diagnosis and 53 children with an autism spectrum disorder diagnosis (ASD) or at risk of developing it. They were asked to complete a self-report on perceived stress and rating scales on adaptive/problematic behaviours, executive functions and sensory profile of the child.

Results

The results reveal that parents of ASD children, compared to the control group, showed significantly higher levels of stress, mainly due to the difficulty of managing unexpected events, the feeling of loss of control over one's life and the fear of not being able to cope with the adversities they were experiences. The most critical area, both for ASD and control group, concern the executive function related to emotional reactions.

Conclusions

Thus, we argue that the difficulties in self-control, sensory modulation and emotional regulation, represent an element of stress for parents of children with developmental disorders.

Implications: Regarding the difficulties of children with ASD, supporting the ways in which caregivers adapt to the signals of children is an important strategy, which has now become a key element of treatments for autism mediated by parents.

中文翻译：

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父母对自闭症谱系障碍和特定语言障碍儿童的压力和情绪行为困难的看法

 背景和目标

照顾自闭症谱系障碍儿童的日常挑战会影响日常生活的许多方面和父母的福祉，以及父母管理家庭和相关儿童需求的能力。更好地了解父母对孩子特征的看法可以为他们提供更好的支持，并以更准确的方式制定个性化干预方案。这项研究的主要目的是评估自闭症儿童的父母与有特定语言障碍的儿童的父母相比的压力感知。

 方法

这项研究包括 87 名 2 至 6 岁儿童的父母，其中 34 名患有特定语言障碍诊断的儿童和 53 名患有自闭症谱系障碍 (ASD) 或有发展风险的儿童。他们被要求完成一份关于感知压力的自我报告，以及儿童适应性/问题行为、执行功能和感官特征的评分量表。

 结果

结果显示，与对照组相比，自闭症谱系障碍儿童的父母表现出明显更高的压力，主要是由于难以处理突发事件、对生活失去控制的感觉以及对无法应对的恐惧逆境就是经历。对于自闭症谱系障碍组和对照组来说，最关键的领域是与情绪反应相关的执行功能。

 结论

因此，我们认为，自我控制、感觉调节和情绪调节方面的困难是发育障碍儿童父母的压力因素之一。

启示：对于自闭症儿童的困难，支持照顾者适应儿童信号的方式是一项重要策略，现已成为父母介导的自闭症治疗的关键要素。