1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«The objectives of the current study were to (1) describe and compare the perceived stress of fathers and mothers of children with ASD [autism spectrum disorders], before they received specialized services (Early Intensive Behavioral Intervention) from a public agency, (2) analyze the relationships between perceived stress of both parents and the child and family characteristics as well as the waiting delay before access to services., and (3) identify which of these variables that might predict parental stress.» (p. 1611)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«One hundred and eighteen families (118 fathers and 118 mothers) were recruited at the time of their child’s registration in a public agency offering specialized services to children and adults with developmental delays in Quebec, Canada.» (p. 1611)

Instruments :
Questionnaire

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique

3. Résumé

«Consistent with previous studies […], the results of this study showed that many parents of children with ASD report levels of stress reaching a clinical threshold […]. The percentage of parents experiencing significant stress levels exceeds that of other studies with comparable families of preschool aged children […] despite having chosen a more strict clinical threshold compared to other studies. […] This finding demonstrates the importance of providing formal support to families during this critical period, that is, after receiving a diagnosis and while waiting to receive services. An interesting finding in this study is that mothers and fathers both reported a higher level of stress related to their parental roles (parent domain) rather than to child characteristics or the parent–child relationship (child domain). These findings are different than those of other studies, where parents perceived more stress in the child domain subscales. […] » (p. 1615) Results also show that «[P]arental stress in our study was associated with the child’s age, intellectual functioning, adaptive behaviors, and severity of autistic symptoms. However, the direction of the associations between those characteristics and parental stress is different than the one found in the scientific literature.» (p. 1617)