Treatment Acceptability for Interventions Addressing Challenging Behavior Among Chinese Caregivers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

Autistic and autism community perspectives on infant and family support in the first two years of life: Findings from a community consultation survey

LAY ABSTRACT

Most support programmes for Autistic children are available only after they are diagnosed. Research suggests that parenting supports may be helpful for parents and their infants, when provided in the first 2 years of life - before a formal diagnosis is given, but when information suggests an infant is more likely to be Autistic. However, we do not know how acceptable these types of supports might be to the Autistic and autism communities. We asked 238 Autistic and non-autistic people - some of whom were parents, and some of whom were professionals working in research, health and education - about their perspectives on very-early supports. People generally agreed that it could be acceptable to work with parents to help them understand and support their child's specific needs and unique ways of communicating. People suggested a variety of support strategies could be acceptable, including parent education, changing the environment to meet an infant's needs, and creating opportunities for infants' to make choices and exercise control. People preferred respectful and accurate language - including the term 'support' (rather than 'intervention') and 'early-in-life' (rather than 'at-risk' of autism, or 'pre-emptive' when describing developmental stage). Continuing to work with community members will help to make sure autism support programmes are relevant and helpful.

Child behavior problems and parental psychological distress in Chinese families of children with autism: The putative moderating role of parental social support and cultural values

The wellbeing of parents of children with autism residing in mainland China remains understudied. We aimed to examine whether and how parental perceived social support, individualism, and collectivism acted together to moderate the relationships between child behavior problems and parental psychological distress in Chinese parents of children with autism. With convenience and snowball sampling, data on 268 primary caregiver parents of children with autism were collected from an online cross-sectional survey. Linear regression analysis indicated that child behavior problems were significantly associated with increased psychological distress in Chinese parents of children with autism. There was no evidence to support the stress-buffering model of social support in moderation analysis of the association between child behavior problems and parental psychological distress. Nonetheless, increased social support was associated with lower levels of parental psychological distress. Moderated moderation analyses did not support a role for individualism or collectivism as a moderator of the putative buffering role of social support. However, there was evidence that parental individualism was associated with increased parental psychological distress. Our findings highlight that child behavior problems are a robust correlate of parental psychological distress, and parental social support may act as a compensatory factor promoting less psychological distress rather than having a protective role. The role of social support and cultural values in the wellbeing of parents of children with autism in China requires additional exploration, including longitudinal research designs.