Longitudinal impact of parents' discrimination experiences on children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms: A 2-year study of families of autistic children.
Parent reports of discrimination foretell rising depression, harsher parenting, and more coparenting fights, which in turn fuel emotional and behavior problems in their autistic children two years later.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Chan et al. (2023) followed families of autistic children for two years. They asked parents about unfair treatment they faced because of their child's autism. Then they tracked parent depression, harsh parenting, and arguments between caregivers.
Each year they also measured children's emotional and behavior problems. The goal was to see if discrimination experiences today predict child problems tomorrow.
What they found
Parents who reported more discrimination became more depressed over time. Their depression led to harsher parenting and more fights with their partner. These three factors then predicted worse emotional and behavior problems in their autistic children two years later.
The pathway was clear: discrimination → parent depression → harsh parenting and coparenting conflict → child internalizing and externalizing symptoms.
How this fits with other research
Gregory et al. (2020) found that about one in three parents of autistic kids already show clinical depression. Shing's work shows discrimination can be one driver of that depression.
Lawer et al. (2009) first showed that child autism severity can spark parent anger and depression through stress buildup. Shing updates this by pointing to discrimination as another key stressor that sets the same cascade in motion.
Monnier et al. (2026) looked at the same kind of families for three years and saw no parent-to-child effects. The studies seem to clash, but Maëva did not ask about discrimination or include coparenting conflict. Shing's specific stressor and extra mediator explain why they found movement where Maëva found none.
Why it matters
When you hear a parent mention unfair treatment at school, in public, or even from family, treat it as a red flag. Ask about mood, parenting style, and how caregivers get along. Offer mental-health referrals early. Teaching coping skills or running parent support groups may break the chain before child problems grow.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Although many parents of autistic children are routinely discriminated against, the potential impact of this discrimination on their parenting processes and child-rearing outcomes has seldom been investigated. The present study addressed this gap in the literature by examining the longitudinal associations of parents' discrimination experiences with children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms among families of autistic children and testing whether these associations would be mediated by parental depression, harsh parenting, and coparenting conflict. On three occasions across 2 years (i.e. T1, T2, and T3), 441 parents of autistic children from Hong Kong, China, provided questionnaire data. Path analyses showed that parents' discrimination experiences at T1 had significant direct effects on parental depression, harsh parenting, and coparenting conflict at T2, which, in turn, had significant direct effects on children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms at T3. Bootstrap analyses further demonstrated that parents' discrimination experiences at T1 had significant indirect effects on children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms at T3 via parental depression, harsh parenting, and coparenting conflict at T2. Our findings have important theoretical contributions and significant practical implications. Theoretically, our findings elucidate how parents' discrimination experiences may longitudinally heighten children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms by adversely affecting parental well-being and parent-child and inter-parental relationships. Practically, our findings highlight the importance of designing and implementing community-based stigma reduction programs and family-based stigma coping interventions to reduce parents' discrimination experiences and associated adverse outcomes on well-being, parenting, marriage, and child development.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2023 · doi:10.1177/13623613221093110