Correlates of Attachment Perceptions in Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

The team asked moms and dads of autistic children to fill out questionnaires. They wanted to know how strongly each parent felt emotionally attached to the child. They also asked how capable and how stressed the parents felt.

The study then checked which of these feelings best predicted parenting stress and sense of competence.

Parents’ own warm attachment to the child mattered more than their guess about the child’s attachment to them. When dads felt a strong bond, their stress dropped and their confidence rose. The link was weaker for moms.

Lord et al. (1997) first showed that parents who view their autistic preschooler as “difficult” report more stress and see less child engagement. The new data add that the parent’s own loving bond, not just the child’s behavior, feeds that stress.

Jones et al. (2010) found mothers carry the highest stress load. Rojahn et al. (2012) agree moms feel more stress overall, yet fathers’ stress and confidence swing more sharply with their own attachment level. The papers do not clash; they simply spotlight different angles—overall level versus gender-specific drivers.

Adams et al. (2025) widened the lens to include older children and showed coping self-efficacy protects quality of life. Together the studies build a timeline: early attachment work (target paper) lays the emotional base, while later coping skills and stigma supports keep parents afloat into adulthood.

When you coach families, ask fathers how close they feel to their child. A simple “Tell me what you love doing together” can reveal weak attachment. Strengthen that bond first—shared play, praise, or brief cuddle time—and you may lower dad’s stress faster than teaching new behavior plans. Moms still need support, but dads often fly under the radar; this paper flags them as a high-impact starting point.