Stepped-Care Digital Gaming Intervention Enhanced Emotion Recognition in Autistic Children: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
Parent mental health in ASD families kept sinking across three pandemic waves and never recovered on its own.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Lu et al. (2026) tracked the same parents of autistic children across three COVID-19 waves in China. They asked about resilience, anxiety, and depression each time.
The team wanted to see if parent mental health bounced back once lockdowns eased.
What they found
Resilience went down. Anxiety and depression went up. These changes stuck even after schools and clinics reopened.
No rebound happened. The damage piled up instead of fading.
How this fits with other research
Gu et al. (2023) pooled 20 studies and found about half of special-needs caregivers felt severe stress during the pandemic. Huixin’s result is one real-world example inside that big picture.
Sutton et al. (2022) seem to disagree at first glance. Their French families stayed stable through lockdown. The difference: those families got weekly phone coaching from their usual clinicians. Support, not time, kept scores flat.
Wang et al. (2025) show hope after the crisis ends. In normal times, social support and resilience feed each other every six months. Once services resume, building active coping and peer networks may reverse the slide Huixin captured.
Why it matters
Do not assume parents will “snap back” when COVID rules lift. Check resilience, anxiety, and depression at every re-assessment. Offer ACT groups, peer chats, or brief coaching calls right away. These low-cost steps can stop the downward spiral before it hardens.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Given the unpredictability and challenges brought about by the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, this study aimed to investigate the impact trend of the prolonged pandemic on the mental health of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The 8112 participants included parents of children with ASD and parents of typically developing (TD) children at two sites (Heilongjiang and Fujian province, China). The parents completed a set of self-report questionnaires covering demographic characteristics, influences related to COVID-19, COVID-19 concerns and perceived behaviors, as well as the Connor-Davidson resilience scale (CD-RISC), self-rating anxiety scale (SAS), and self-rating depression scale (SDS) by means of an online survey platform. Data were collected by three cross-sectional surveys carried out in April 2020 (Time 1), October 2020 (Time 2), and October 2021 (Time 3). The results of quantitative and qualitative comparisons showed that: (i) parents of children with ASD had lower levels of resilience, and more symptoms of anxiety and depression than parents of TD children at each time point (all P < 0.05); and (ii) there were significant time-cumulative changes in resilience, anxiety, and depression among all participants (all P < 0.05). The logistic regression analyzes after adjusting for demographic characteristics revealed that the following factors were significantly associated with poor resilience and a higher rate of anxiety and depression in parents of children with ASD: time-point, the effect of COVID-19 on children's emotions and parents' emotions, changes in relationships, changes in physical exercise, changes in daily diet during the COVID-19 pandemic, and COVID-19-related psychological distress. In conclusions, the parents did not report improvements in resilience, anxiety, or depression symptoms from Time 1 to Time 2 or 3, indicating that cumulative mental health issues increased when, surprisingly, the COVID-19 restrictions were eased. The psychological harm resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic is far-reaching, especially among parents of children with ASD.
Journal of autism and developmental disorders, 2026 · doi:10.1016/S0033-3182(71)71479-0