Maternal stress and family quality of life in response to raising a child with autism: from preschool to adolescence.
Mom stress and family quality of life hold steady from preschool through adolescence in autism families, so yearly parent support is vital.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked mothers of children with autism one big question. Does stress change as the child grows from preschool to teen years?
They sent surveys to families. Moms rated their stress and how the family felt about daily life.
What they found
Stress stayed flat. Family quality of life also stayed flat. Age did not move the needle.
Even when kids hit the teen years and school help dropped, mom stress did not rise.
How this fits with other research
Carr et al. (2013) saw stress climb in adolescence. The new study saw no climb. The gap comes from different moms: the 2013 sample had more African-American and lower-education families who felt a sharper teen spike.
Scibelli et al. (2021) zoomed in on teens and found child behavior problems and low IQ drove stress, not autism severity. That finding helps explain why stress can stay stuck even when kids age.
Azad et al. (2013) tracked moms of young children with any developmental delay. Stress stayed high in early childhood then dropped in middle childhood. The 2014 autism-only study shows the drop may not happen once autism is in the mix.
Why it matters
Do not wait for stress to ease as the child gets older. Plan long-haul parent support that teaches coping skills and manages teen behavior. Screen every year, not just at diagnosis. Add respite and sibling support even when the child looks 'stable' on paper.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Add one parent stress question to your teen session intake and offer a referral if the score stays high.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
While the impact of raising a child with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is well documented, with mothers reporting higher levels of stress than mothers of children with other disabilities, positive maternal outcomes have also been identified. What remains unclear, however, is the role of child age on maternal outcomes. We sought to clarify the role of child age in maternal stress and family quality of life (FQoL) in mothers raising a child with ASD. Participants included 140 mothers of children aged 3-16 years grouped to represent four key stages of childhood (preschool, early school years, middle school, early high school). Using a cross-sectional design, mothers completed questionnaires assessing potential risk (e.g., child problem behaviour, symptom severity) and protective (e.g., family characteristics) factors attributed to maternal outcomes. The results revealed significant age related group differences in child internalising behaviour and ASD symptomatology between the early and middle school years. Lower levels of adaptive social behaviour in older age groups were also found. Although mothers of older children reported significantly less support from professionals than mothers of younger children, no significant age effects were found to contribute to maternal reports of stress or FQoL. The current findings support the view that mothers appear to demonstrate stable levels of stress and FQoL despite fluctuations in key child variables and a reduction in supports, across age, highlighting the ongoing nature of maternal needs and heightened levels of child symptomatology during adolescence.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2014 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2014.07.043