The association of adverse life events and parental mental health with emotional and behavioral outcomes in young adults with autism spectrum disorder.
Adverse events and parent stress each worsen emotional and behavioral health in young adults with autism—check both in transition planning.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team asked two questions. Do bad life events hurt young adults with autism? Does parent stress also hurt these young adults?
They tracked young adults with autism and their parents. They counted stressful events like job loss or divorce. They also scored parent mood and youth behavior problems.
What they found
Both bad events and parent stress mattered. Each one alone predicted more mood and behavior trouble in the young adults.
When both were present, outcomes were worse. The damage stacked up, not cancelled out.
How this fits with other research
Yorke et al. (2018) pooled many studies and saw the same link: child problems raise parent stress. The new paper flips the view—parent stress also worsens child problems.
Kuenzel et al. (2021) showed positive parenting can shield young kids from adversity’s cognitive hit. J et al. now show that for young adults, adversity still hurts even when parenting is good.
Bortoletto et al. (2023) found that piled-up stress can push autistic teens into psychotic crises. J et al. widen the picture: even everyday emotional and behavioral problems rise with each added stressor.
Why it matters
Screen for both life events and parent mental health at every transition-planning meeting. You can’t fix what you don’t ask about. A quick checklist on parent mood and recent family stress gives you two new levers to improve client outcomes.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
People with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are at increased risk of developing co-occurring mental health difficulties across the lifespan. Exposure to adverse life events and parental mental health difficulties are known risk factors for developing a range of mental health difficulties. This study investigates the association of adverse life events, parental stress and mental health with emotional and behavioral problems in young adults with ASD. One hundred and fifteen young adults with ASD derived from a population-based longitudinal study were assessed at three time-points (12-, 16-, and 23-year) on questionnaire measures of emotional and behavioral problems. Parent-reported exposure to adverse life events and parental stress/mental health were measured at age 23. We used structural equation modeling to investigate the stability of emotional and behavioral problems over time, and the association between adverse life events and parental stress and mental health and emotional and behavioral outcomes at 23-year. Our results indicate that exposure to adverse life events was significantly associated with increased emotional and behavioral problems in young adults with ASD, while controlling for symptoms in childhood and adolescence. Higher reported parental stress and mental health difficulties were associated with a higher frequency of behavioral, but not emotional problems, and did not mediate the impact of adverse life events. These results suggest that child and adolescent emotional and behavioral problems, exposure to life events and parent stress and mental health are independently associated, to differing degrees, with emotional or behavioral outcomes in early adulthood. LAY SUMMARY: People with autism experience high rates of mental health difficulties throughout childhood and into adult life. Adverse life events and parental stress and mental health may contribute to poor mental health in adulthood. We used data at three time points (12-, 16-, and 23-year) to understand how these factors relate to symptoms at 23-year. We found that emotional and behavioral problems in childhood, adverse life events and parent mental health were all associated with increased emotional and behavioral problems in adulthood.
Autism research : official journal of the International Society for Autism Research, 2021 · doi:10.1002/aur.2548