Relations between problem behaviors, perceived symptom severity and parenting in adolescents and emerging adults with ASD: The mediating role of parental psychological need frustration.
Teen problem behaviors chip away at parents’ sense of competence, making parents more controlling — shore up the parent first.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McGarty et al. (2018) asked parents of teens and young adults with autism to fill out surveys.
They wanted to see if the young person’s problem behaviors changed how controlling or supportive the parent acted.
They also checked whether the parent’s own feeling of ‘I’m failing’ helped explain any link.
What they found
More acting-out by the teen predicted more controlling parenting.
Parents’ sense of ‘need frustration’ carried part of that effect.
Higher autism severity on its own led parents to give less autonomy support.
How this fits with other research
Tomeny (2017) saw the same starting point: child autism severity hurts parent mental health, but through parenting stress instead of need frustration.
Liu et al. (2024) extend the picture to Chinese families, showing resilience can buffer stress before it turns into burnout.
Schertz et al. (2016) add stigma as another go-between: child behaviors raise felt stigma, which then raises life difficulty.
All four studies agree: child behaviors first hit the parent’s inner experience, then parenting changes.
Why it matters
You can’t fix ‘controlling’ parenting by simply telling parents to stop.
Their sense of competence is wounded first.
Add brief check-ins that boost mastery and reduce stigma, and you may protect both parent and teen in the same move.
Want CEUs on This Topic?
The ABA Clubhouse has 60+ free CEUs — live every Wednesday. Ethics, supervision & clinical topics.
Join Free →Start each parent meeting with one question: ‘What went well this week?’ to refill their competence tank before you give behavior plans.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Research in parents of youngsters with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) increasingly documents associations between children's problem behaviors and symptom severity and more dysfunctional and less adaptive parenting behaviors. However, the mechanisms underlying these associations have not been examined thoroughly. This study examines the mediating role of parental need frustration in the relation between child maladjustment (i.e., problem behavior and autism severity) and parenting behavior (i.e., controlling and autonomy-supportive parenting). The sample included 95 parents of adolescents/emerging adults with ASD (Mage=18.8years, SD=2.3). Parents completed questionnaires assessing their parenting strategies and psychological need frustration as well as the internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors and autism severity of their child. Results indicate that the association between externalizing problems and controlling parenting was partially mediated by need frustration. This suggests that externalizing problems go together with lower feelings of parent-child closeness, lower parental competence, and a decreased sense of volitional functioning, feelings that, in turn, relate to more controlling strategies. Symptom severity has a direct negative association with autonomy support, suggesting that parents lower their autonomy support when their child has high levels of autism symptoms, without experiencing these symptoms as a threat to their own psychological needs.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2018 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2017.12.012