A Systematic Review of the Stigma Experienced by People with Autism Spectrum Disorder Associated with Intellectual Disabilities and by Their Family Caregivers.
Mindfulness training shields parents of autistic children from the psychological harm of community stigma.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Andrés-Gárriz et al. (2025) tracked parents of autistic children for one full year. They asked how community stigma hurt parents' mental health and whether mindfulness softened the blow.
The team used surveys at three time points. They measured public stigma, courtesy stigma, mindfulness, and parent depression and anxiety.
What they found
Parents who scored high in mindfulness stayed psychologically healthy even when stigma was high. Mindfulness acted like a shield, blocking the damage stigma usually causes.
The buffering effect held across both public stigma and courtesy stigma. Gains were still strong twelve months later.
How this fits with other research
The finding lines up with Hartley et al. (2019). Their meta-analysis of ten studies showed mindfulness boosts wellbeing for autistic people and caregivers.
Feng et al. (2025) dug deeper into the same year. They found mindfulness lowers stress because it raises resilience and psychological flexibility. Clara's work shows the same mechanisms protect against stigma.
Palka Bayard de Volo et al. (2021) looked at preschool parents and saw mindfulness linked to wellbeing, not mental health. Clara's longer view shows mindfulness guards both, suggesting earlier studies may have been too short.
Why it matters
You can't stop strangers from staring or giving unwanted advice. You can teach parents mindfulness skills that blunt the sting. Add a five-minute breathing or body-scan routine to parent training. Track stress before and after. Over time you should see fewer crisis calls and more steady participation in therapy sessions.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Although the public and courtesy stigma of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are prevalent, there are very few studies examining their adverse psychological effects on parents of children with ASD or exploring plausible factors that can alleviate these adverse effects. The present study addressed these literature gaps by investigating the longitudinal linkages of public and courtesy stigma to detrimental cognitive (i.e., self-stigma content and process) and affective (i.e., perceived stress and symptoms of depression and anxiety) consequences for parents of children with ASD and testing if these linkages would be moderated by trait mindfulness. METHODS: At two time points separated by 12 months, 372 Hong Kong parents of children with ASD provided questionnaire data on public and courtesy stigma, mindfulness, self-stigma content and process, perceived stress, and symptoms of depression and anxiety. RESULTS: Hierarchical regressions showed that public and courtesy stigma interacted significantly with mindfulness at baseline in predicting self-stigma content and process, perceived stress, and symptoms of depression and anxiety at follow-up. Moreover, simple slope analyses showed that the linkages of public and courtesy stigma to the five detrimental psychological consequences were weaker in parents with high mindfulness than in those with low mindfulness. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings highlight the longitudinal linkages of public and courtesy stigma to detrimental cognitive and affective consequences for parents of children with ASD, and reveal the plausible protective effects of mindfulness against such linkages. These findings suggest the potential utility of increasing mindfulness in parents of children with ASD in coping with community stigma and improving mental health.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2025 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2022.104243