Parents' criticisms and attributions about their adult children with high functioning autism or schizophrenia.
Parents of adults with autism are less critical and blaming than parents of adults with schizophrenia, so match parent training to the diagnosis.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Wasserman et al. (2010) asked parents to fill out a short survey.
They compared two groups: parents of adults with high-functioning autism and parents of adults with schizophrenia.
The survey measured how often parents used harsh criticism and how much they blamed their child for problems.
What they found
Parents of autistic adults used less harsh criticism than parents of adults with schizophrenia.
They also placed slightly less blame on their child when things went wrong.
The gap was big enough to matter in daily family life.
How this fits with other research
Al-Yagon et al. (2022) looked at the same two groups and found that almost half of autistic adults score in the typical range on social-cognitive tests.
This helps explain why parents of autistic adults may feel less need to criticize: their children often show fewer odd or hostile behaviors.
Dykens et al. (1991) first showed that thought patterns overlap but also differ between the two diagnoses; Stephanie’s team now shows that parents notice these differences too.
Marsack-Topolewski et al. (2025) later interviewed parents of autistic adults and heard that work gives them a needed break from caregiving; lower criticism may help these parents keep that balance.
Why it matters
If you coach families, tailor your message. Parents of autistic adults may need help finding respite or jobs, not blame-reduction training. Parents of adults with schizophrenia may first need tools to lower criticism and re-frame blame. Check which diagnosis you are dealing with before you pick the parent intervention.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The current study examined the criticism component of expressed emotion (EE) and attributions in parents of adults diagnosed with schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder (S/SA) or high functioning autism/Asperger's. Consistent with study hypotheses, parents of adults diagnosed with autism/Asperger's disorder exhibited lower levels of high EE-criticism than parents of adults diagnosed with S/SA. Moderate trends suggested that parents of adults diagnosed with autism/Asperger's disorder tended to make less blameworthy attributions towards patients than did parents of adults diagnosed with S/SA. A content analysis of parents' causal attributions was also conducted.The most common cause cited by both groups of parents was biological factors, suggesting that parents may be becoming more aware of scientific findings implicating biological factors, in conjunction with psychosocial factors, as a major cause of mental illness.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2010 · doi:10.1177/1362361309354757