Brief Report: Investigating Temporal Factors in the Context of Parenting an Autistic Child

Jake Meads; Daniel Shepherd; Jason Landon; Sonja Goedeke

doi:10.1007/s10803-022-05642-8

Brief Report: Investigating Temporal Factors in the Context of Parenting an Autistic Child

J Autism Dev Disord. 2022 Jul 28. doi: 10.1007/s10803-022-05642-8. Online ahead of print.

Authors

Jake Meads¹, Daniel Shepherd², Jason Landon¹, Sonja Goedeke¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, 1142, Auckland, New Zealand.
² Department of Psychology, Auckland University of Technology, Private Bag 92006, 1142, Auckland, New Zealand. daniel.shepherd@aut.ac.nz.

PMID: 35902417
DOI: 10.1007/s10803-022-05642-8

Abstract

The current study was a secondary analysis of cross-sectional data collected in New Zealand. Parents (n = 291) of an autistic child completed an online survey that included temporal/demographic questions relating to the parent and child, and parent ratings of the child's core ASD symptoms, their parenting stress, and psychological well-being. Child and parent ages were related to ASD core symptoms, parenting stress, and psychological well-being, the parent-child age gap was not. Diagnostic delay was only positively associated with parent depression and negatively associated with child communication impairment. Findings indicated that temporal variables can be predictive of parent well-being and child autism symptoms. The findings suggest that focusing interventions on communication abilities may have positive impacts parental mental health.

Keywords: ASD; ASD core symptoms; Autism; Diagnostic delay; Parenting stress; Temporal factors.