Family Emotional Climate and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Abstract

Little research has examined family emotional climate in the context of having a child with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The goal of the current study was to determine how the emotional quality of family subsystems (parent-child and parent couple relationships, for both mothers and fathers) combine to create various classes of family emotional climate and to identify predictors of class membership in 148 families of children with ASD. The emotional quality of family subsystems was assessed using Five Minute Speech Samples from mothers and fathers. In total, 148 families of children with ASD (86% male) aged 6-13 years were included in analyses. About one-third of parents did not have a college degree and more than two-thirds were of non-Hispanic White origin. Latent class analyses revealed that 43% of the sample was characterized by high levels of warmth and low levels of criticism in both the parent-child and parent couple relationships; 12% of the sample was characterized by low warmth and high criticism in both sets of relationships; and the rest of the sample was divided among three additional classes of emotional climate characterized by different configurations of warmth and criticism across both sets of relationships. Parent level of broader autism phenotype (BAP) and child emotional and behavioral problems were associated with emotional climate class membership. Implications for interventions are discussed.

Relationships Between Household Income and Functional Independent Behavior for Children With Autism

“…Exploration of relationships between additional household variables and functional independence was not possible with the current sample due to the lack of variables capturing family structure, and household context. Family and household context such as parent stress, family emotional climate, household chaos, routines, or parent wellbeing has been connected to behavioral outcomes for children with and without ASD (Adams et al, 2019;Greenlee et al, 2018;Hall & Graff, 2012;Hickey et al, 2019;Marsh et al, 2020). Future research should expand on these preliminary findings to further characterize the associations identified and explore how additional factors may be related to measures of income and functional independence outcomes for children with ASD.…”

Family and Developmental History of Individuals With Autism Spectrum Disorder: Importance of the Clinical Diagnostic Interview for Diagnosis in Adolescents. An Explorative Study

“…This is in line with the ASD literature, as individual relationships in families of adolescents with ASD were not described as markedly impaired. However, families reported lower functioning of the family and decreased quality of life ( 54 , 55 ). We found in our data that mothers of adolescents with ASD reported less pregnancies and less childbirths ( Table 3A ).…”

Coparenting: A focus on divorced families, stepfamilies, intergenerational families, and families with a child on the autism spectrum.

“…In addition, overall parents of children with ASD had significantly less dyadic satisfaction than parents of children without ASD (Gau et al, 2012). Lower levels of marital satisfaction may be expressed through partner criticism, and mothers of children with ASD were found to be more likely than fathers to express high criticism of their partner (Hickey et al, 2019).…”

“…Mothers of children with ASD also report higher levels of parenting stress than fathers (Foody et al, 2015). Hickey et al (2019) found that mothers were more likely than fathers to express high criticism of their child with ASD, potentially because they are shouldering more of the parenting stress burden. Additionally, families with children with ASD can experience greater financial, employment, and time-related burdens compared with families with a child with a developmental disability, mental health condition, or a combination of both (Vohra et al, 2014).…”