Child Behavior Problems and Parental Well-Being in Families of Children With Autism: The Mediating Role of Mindfulness and Acceptance

Abstract

(2014) Child behavior problems and parental well-being in families of children with autism : the mediating role of mindfulness and acceptance. American Journal on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, Volume 119 (Number 2). pp. 171-185. Permanent WRAP url: http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/62259 Copyright and reuse:The Warwick Research Archive Portal (WRAP) makes this work of researchers of the University of Warwick available open access under the following conditions. Copyright © and all moral rights to the version of the paper presented here belong to the individual author(s) and/or other copyright owners. To the extent reasonable and practicable the material made available in WRAP has been checked for eligibility before being made available.Copies of full items can be used for personal research or study, educational, or not-forprofit purposes without prior permission or charge. Provided that the authors, title and full bibliographic details are credited, a hyperlink and/or URL is given for the original metadata page and the content is not changed in any way. A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP url' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription. General mindfulness and mindful parenting had significant mediation effects for maternal anxiety, depression, and stress. These results contribute to evidence that mindfulness and acceptance may be important parental psychological processes, with implications for parent support.

Comparative Effects of Mindfulness and Support and Information Group Interventions for Parents of Adults with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Other Developmental Disabilities

“…Each item is rated on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 0 "never true" to 3 "always true", yielding a total score ranging from zero to a maximum of 45. Cronbach's alpha for the scale was 0.83, similar to previous reports (Jones et al 2014). Related to the broader construct of mindful parenting, the Positive Gain Scale (PGS; Pit-ten Cate 2003) is 7-item measure that assesses caregivers' perceptions of positive contributions their child with disability has made to their lives.…”

“…The Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ; Baer et al 2006) and the Bangor Mindful Parenting Scale (BMPS; Jones et al 2014) were adopted to assess mindfulness and mindful parenting respectively. The FFMQ is a 39-item self-report questionnaire that consists of five subscales that measure five component skills of mindfulness (observing, describing, act awareness, non-judging of inner experiences, and non-reactivity to inner experiences).…”

“…Increased general mindfulness and mindfulness in the parenting role, as well as increased psychological acceptance in general and in the parenting role, have been associated with reduced psychological distress for mothers and fathers of children with ASD/DD (Jones et al 2014;Lloyd and Hastings 2008;MacDonald et al 2010;Weiss et al 2012). …”

Training Parents of Children with Intellectual Disabilities: Trends, Issues, and Future Directions

“…In addition, researchers should further evaluate combined intervention programs that use (a) evidence-based interventions to decrease parent stress and depression and improve mental health such as mindfulness based or cognitive behavioral strategies for stress reduction [101,102] alongside (b) applied behavior analytic interventions to improve child adaptive behavior skills and decrease challenging behavior. Psychological acceptance and mindfulness have been shown to mediate the impact of challenging behavior on parent distress for parents of children with ASD [103]. In addition, it is important for researchers to consider that parent stress continues into a child's adolescence, especially when the child with IDD engages in challenging behavior [100].…”

Communicating Concern about Early Signs of Autism to Parents

“…A clinician like Dr. Peterson understands that the more stress any parent feels about the diagnosis, the more impaired he or she will judge the child to be [5]. Giving parents early support and reassurance to love their children as they become their unique authentic selves might be the best way to create a "therapeutic alliance" and promote parental acceptance [6]. In addition, caregivers need not try to change many behaviors and stereotypes associated with autism-especially those behaviors that are not a burden to the child [7].…”