Parent, Teacher and Observational Reports of Emotional and Behavioral Problems in Young Autistic Children

Abstract

Emotional and behavioral problems (EBPs) frequently occur in young autistic children. Discrepancies between parents and other informants are common but can lead to uncertainty in formulation, diagnosis and care planning. This study aimed to explore child and informant characteristics are associated with reported child EBPs across settings. Participants were 83 4–8-year-old autistic children and their parents and teachers in the Autism Spectrum Treatment and Resilience (ASTAR) study. Questionnaires of child EBPs were completed by parents and teachers, and self-reported parenting stress and wellbeing measures were obtained. An observation of parent–child/researcher-child interaction was also completed. Parents reported more EBPs than teachers and parent-teacher agreement was low, particularly for emotional problems. Greater parenting stress and being verbal was associated with more parent- but not teacher-reported EBPs. More observed behaviors that challenge were displayed by minimally verbal children. More parenting stress could be associated with the presence of more EBPs in the home; alternatively, parenting stress may confound reports. It is essential for assessments of EBPs in autistic children to take a multi-informant approach. Better understanding of the associations between informant characteristics and informant discrepancies of EBPs is needed.

Caregiver-Child Agreement in Health-Related Quality of Life of Autistic Children and Adolescents

“…The discrepancies that we found in scores for emotional functioning, particularly the overreport of parents compared to children, indicate particular concern for child's self-regulation and indirectly may reflect caregiver stress. This hypothesis is further in line with recent research showing that parents of autistic children document a higher proportion of emotional and behavioral difficulties than teachers (Palmer et al, 2022 ). Parents may overreport problems in this area since most of these difficulties occur in daily unstructured situations when children are mainly with their families (Yorke et al, 2018 ).…”

A tool to profile neural, sensory and motor development in children at school entry, identifying possible barriers to learning and emotional well‐being in early childhood

“…Likewise, the external senses domain of the Tool did not correlate with any of the screeners, including the Sensory Profile‐2 (Dunn, 2014). This could be due to differences in observer rather than questionnaire, as research notes situational specificity regarding observations of behaviour at school and home, where the nature of the different environments is likely to influence sensory responsivity (Palmer et al, 2022). For this reason, it was felt that such an important domain should be kept within the Tool as specific differences in the external senses are known to impact learning, for example inattentive children may have deficits in the auditory modality (Schmidt et al, 2019) and children with motor deficits may also have visual difficulties (Miller et al, 2014).…”

Teacher‐ and parent‐reported trajectories of maladaptive behaviors among individuals with autism and non‐spectrum delays

“…Teachers and parents showed moderate interrater agreement on reports of hyperactivity and irritability symptoms, and low interrater agreement on reports of social withdrawal symptoms. Although literature on teacher‐parent agreement is somewhat mixed, studies generally identify low‐to‐moderate correlations (Freund & Reiss, 1991; Lane et al, 2013; Stratis & Lecavalier, 2015; 2017), with better agreement on externalizing versus internalizing constructs likely due to the observability of these behaviors (Kanne et al, 2009; Palmer et al, 2022; Stratis & Lecavalier, 2015). Perhaps most notably, teacher and parent report revealed the same pattern of trajectories, and predictors of those trajectories, for all three kinds of maladaptive behaviors.…”

“…The complexity of ASD, variability in behaviors observed across contexts, and impact of the environment on reporting (De Los Reyes & Kazdin, 2005; Dickson et al, 2018; Kanne et al, 2009; Kraemer et al, 2003) further support the need for a multi‐informant approach to research and assessment in ASD. For example, situational specificity (e.g., at home with parents vs. in a classroom with other children) has consistently been noted as a factor that influences informants' reporting of behaviors and competencies in research on ASD (Clark et al, 2020; Murray et al, 2009; Palmer et al, 2022) and child development more broadly (Bishop et al, 2003; Phares et al, 1989; Rescorla et al, 2014). Additionally, informants often differ in how they interact with the individual with ASD as well as how the presence of the informant influences behavior (De Los Reyes, 2011).…”