Longitudinal study of perceived negative impact in African American and Caucasian mothers of children with autism spectrum disorder.
Mom stress climbs as kids with autism hit junior high, but culture and schooling shape how high she says it is.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team followed 49 moms of kids with autism for four years. Kids started around age 10 and left the study around age 14.
Every year moms filled out a short scale that asked, 'How much has your child upset family life?'
What they found
Stress scores crept up each year. By ninth grade moms felt the highest negative impact.
Black moms with less school reported lower impact than white moms or college-educated Black moms.
How this fits with other research
Yorke et al. (2018) pooled 38 studies and saw the same link: more child behavior problems equals more mom stress. Themba’s data sit right inside that trend.
Blacher et al. (2013) ran a twin study but asked about positive impact. Latino moms held steady while Anglo moms dipped. Themba flips the coin: negative impact rises for everyone, yet culture still shapes the slope.
Whaling et al. (2025) tracked dads for ten years and found conflict at home keeps climbing through middle school. Themba shows moms feel it too, just measured in a different way.
Why it matters
Expect parent stress to spike at transition-to-high-school meetings. Add a brief stress screen to your annual plan. If mom rates impact low, ask open questions anyway; some Black moms may under-report. Offer coping skills or referral before burnout peaks.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add one question—'How has your child affected family life this year?'—to your transition IEP intake form.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine the stability of mothers' perceptions of the negative impact of having a child with ASD in a sample of African American and Caucasian families as their children transitioned to early adolescence. Participants were mothers and children participating in an ongoing longitudinal study of children referred for diagnosis of ASD at age two. Analyses included data from two time points, when child participants were approximately 9 and 14 years old. Linear mixed model analyses were used to examine the relationship between the primary outcome variable, mothers' perceived negative impact across time, and hypothesized predictors. Negative impact increased significantly from late childhood to into adolescence. However, African American mothers with lower education reported significantly lower levels of perceived negative impact at both time points. Findings show that for some families, the transition to adolescence is a period in which mothers experience increased amounts of negative impact and highlight the importance of examining the influence of socioeconomic variables. Furthermore, data suggest that there may be cultural differences mediating the relationship between maternal education, ethnicity, and perceived negative impact. Implications for the importance of including families from varying levels of socioeconomic status in ASD research are discussed.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2013 · doi:10.1177/1362361311435155