Autism-specific parenting self-efficacy: An examination of the role of parent-reported intervention involvement, satisfaction with intervention-related training, and caregiver burden.
When parents feel included and satisfied with training, their autism-specific parenting confidence rises; heavy caregiver burden drags it down.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Kurzrok et al. (2021) asked parents how involved they felt in their child's autism services. They also asked how happy parents were with the training they got. Finally, they asked how heavy the caregiving load felt.
The team used an online survey. They wanted to see which of these three pieces best predicted autism-specific parenting confidence.
What they found
Parents who said 'I take part in my child's program' and 'I like the training' scored higher on autism-specific parenting confidence. Parents who rated caregiving as exhausting scored lower.
The link held even after accounting for child age and parent education.
How this fits with other research
Lee et al. (2022) pooled 37 parent-training trials. Their meta-analysis also found small gains in parenting confidence, but no drop in caregiver stress. Jennifer's survey agrees on confidence, yet shows burden itself lowers confidence. The gap is method: T et al. averaged group means, while Jennifer measured each parent's personal sense of burden.
Iadarola et al. (2018) ran an RCT and saw stress fall and competence rise after 12 weeks of training. Jennifer's work extends that result by showing satisfaction with training, not just receiving it, is the active ingredient.
Lu et al. (2024) found higher self-efficacy led parents to offer more physical-activity support despite stigma. Jennifer supplies the upstream recipe: boost involvement and training joy, ease burden, and efficacy rises.
Why it matters
Check two things at every parent meeting: 'Do you feel part of the team?' and 'Was the training useful?' If either answer is shaky, fix it on the spot. Offer shorter, clearer demonstrations or let parents practice skills during the session. Also ask, 'What feels hardest right now?' and trim that burden—reschedule appointments, teach a quicker bedtime routine, or loop in respite. Small moves here lift parenting confidence, which later fuels child progress.
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Join Free →End each parent meeting by asking, 'What part of today's training felt most helpful?' and 'What's one thing we can simplify for you this week?' Record the answers and adjust next session.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
What is already known about the topic?Parents of children with autism experience enormous challenges managing the complex needs of caring for their children. This includes coordinating multiple and complex therapies and acting as partners in treatment. Parenting self-efficacy is the confidence a person has in their ability to manage the tasks that are part of raising a child. People who have more confidence, or greater parenting self-efficacy, often feel less stressed and are more able to manage the demands of family life. This is particularly important for parents with children who have autism spectrum disorder, since they experience more parenting pressures. Although a lot is known about parenting self-efficacy in parents of neurotypical children, we do not know enough about how to help parents of children with autism spectrum disorder develop greater parenting self-efficacy.What this paper adds?This study shows that parents gain a greater sense of parenting self-efficacy when they feel more involved in their child's therapy and are more satisfied with the training they receive as part of these therapies. We also find that feeling pressure related to being a caregiver of a child with autism spectrum disorder can undermine autism-specific parenting self-efficacy. However, parents' sense of confidence was not limited by the severity of their child's symptoms.Implications for practice, research, or policyThe results suggest that there is an opportunity to help parents develop a greater sense of confidence in their ability to manage the complexities of raising a child with autism spectrum disorder by helping them feel more involved in treatment and by creating intervention-related training experiences that are more satisfying. Providers might also help by taking time to address the challenges and pressures that parents are experiencing, and helping them find ways to deal with these challenges. We suggest that there needs to be more research exploring how providers can best design interventions that support autism-specific parenting self-efficacy as a way of improving parental and child well-being.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2021 · doi:10.1177/1362361321990931