News Flash: It's Stressful to Raise a Child with Autism
Saturday July 11, 2009
In a shockingly obvious finding, researchers have discovered that it's more stressful to raise a child with autism than to raise a child with non-autism-related delays. According to an article in Science Daily:
Researchers at the University of Washington's Autism Center asked mothers about their experiences and found that moms of children with autism had higher levels of parenting-related stress and psychological distress than mothers of children with developmental delay.A related finding notes that behavioral issues are more likely to cause stress than life skills issues. That is, it's more stressful to manage a screaming child in a mall than to help that child put his pants on. And it's more stressful to watch a child bang his head against the wall than it is to brush his teeth for him. Who knew?!
Researchers conducting this not-so-groundbreaking study also made a "no s**t Sherlock" recommendation, often heard and rarely acted upon:
How to help families is important because high levels of stress and psychological distress can interfere with early identification of autism and interventions which are delivered by parents. There's another good reason to do this: Parents who feel supported can better support their children.Yup, autism is stressful -- and its symptoms generally do include behavior problems. Yup, family support is a great idea. And of course, it's nice for families raising kids on the autism spectrum to be validated in their concerns by the good folks at the University of Washington's Autism Center!
- Understanding and Managing Autistic Behavior
- Behavior Specialists and Autism
- Drugs Used to Manage Autistic Behaviors
Comments
I had the very same “duh” reaction to reading the study. Wondering also why it gets kind of visibility as if it were not the nth study on the very same population (seems like students would pick up those samples in a course about “autism” for instance).
There are few studies – or at least getting much publicity – on the long terms effects of continued stress on families raising individual with behaviors causing continuing stress because they have autism all their lives.
I thought it was a joke when I read the headline — I assumed it was something from The Onion!
I kind of get annoyed with research comparing disorder’s to other disorder’s, it’s like down sizing the stress levels one parent may have over another and I’m really not sure if early detection would help that stress level.
I was just at my nephew’s 1st birthday party and all he did was cry, which one sister just cant handle a crying child. So for her to be in the mall and hear my child throw a crying fit would probably stress her out more than it would me! It’s all about each persons coping skills and levels, some have far more than others while some have far less.
Wouldn’t it be nice if they took the money spent on the research and provided real support to us families dealing with loved ones with autism?
I have kids with LD and one with moderate-severe Autism…the stress level is pretty equal across the board for us as LD encompasses a lot of similar behavioural issues as well.
Organizational issues, remembering how to complete multi-stepped tasks, even routine tasks, planning and the severe emotional issues that all three of them face, I would say makes the stress level on us as parents pretty equal.
Not only do I think this “brainwave” study was a complete waste of time, money and resources, but it also doesn’t mention anything about how we as parents…heck, as humans…all have our mountains to climb, and the stress of doing so is with all of us, perhaps at varying degrees, but it’s there none the less.
The reward at the top of each of our mountains though is breath-taking, even though you may have thought along the way all too many times that you would never get to the top.
Cheers
Caroline
Shocker! I wouldn’t have known that if a study hadn’t told me it was so.