Stressed!!! The Impact of Transitions and Reminder Events, and What You Can Do

When given a survey on stress levels, parents of children on the autism spectrum show a significantly higher rate of stress than parents of typically developing children. The two biggest factors correlated to this stress are communication difficulties with their child and feeling a lack of emotional connection with their child. Researchers also looked at how transition times and reminder events can lead to elevated stress levels. For fathers, the reminder events were most highly correlated.

Reminder events are an occurrence when something that happens reminds the parent that their child does not develop in the expected fashion. This reminder may be seeing other children the same age engaging in different activities or even seeing another child on the spectrum who reminders a parent of their own children at a younger age, or potentially at an older age.

To help mediate this stress, researchers looked at two methodologies: Child Focused and Parent Focused. For the child focused, parents were taught skills to help them work directly with their children. In parent focused, parents were taught how to find resources, supports, and included psychoeducation in the form of teaching mindfulness.

The parents who received both showed significant decreases in stress levels. Those who received just the parent focused approach showed lower stress levels than those who received just the child focused approach. Ideally then, parent supports would include both skills training and access to resources, supports, and counseling options.