Couple Conflict in Parents of Children with versus without Autism: Self-Reported and Observed Findings

Abstract

We compared the couple conflict of parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) to a comparison group of parents of children without disabilities using self-reported and observational measures. In total, 178 couples who had a child with ASD (aged 5–12 years) and 174 couples who had children without disabilities (aged 5–12 years), recruited from a Midwestern state in the United States, reported on couple conflict in everyday life and engaged in an observed couple conflict interaction. Parents of children with ASD reported more frequent, severe, and unresolved couple problems than the comparison group. Parents who had a child with ASD were observed to have less engaged, balanced, and cooperative couple conflict interactions, but demonstrated more positive affect and sensitivity towards one another, than parents in the comparison group. Group differences had small effect sizes. Findings have implications for marital therapy and relationship education programs.

The Impact of Child Autistic Symptoms on Parental Marital Relationship: Parenting and Coparenting Processes as Mediating Mechanisms

“…Research shows that raising a child with ASD may increase marital conflicts (i.e., confrontations, arguments, and disputes in marriage) and reduce marital love (i.e., spousal feelings of passion, intimacy, and commitment) among parents [Sim, Cordier, Vaz, & Falkmer, 2016]. Cross-sectional, correlational studies, for example, have shown that, compared to parents of typically developing children and parents of children with other developmental disabilities, parents of children with ASD report lower levels of marital adjustment, satisfaction, and happiness and higher levels of marital separation, divorce, and dissolution [Gau et al, 2012;Hartley, Papp, et al, 2017;Hartley et al, 2010;Lee, 2009]. Longitudinal studies have further demonstrated that spousal perceptions of marital connectedness, closeness, and attachment often decline after the birth of a child with ASD [Hartley, Barker, Baker, Seltzer, & Greenberg, 2012].…”

Mental Health of Parents of Special Needs Children in China during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…According to previous studies, caring for special needs children causes many problems among parents on ordinary days; however, parents with special needs children experience more physical, social, and emotional challenges compared to parents of typically developing children [ 5 ]. They also face a greater risk of psychological burden and experience various mental health problems such as anxiety [ 4 , 6 ], depression [ 3 ], marital discord [ 7 ], and sleep problems [ 8 ]. Parents with differently challenged special needs children may display diverse types of mental health problems; however, anxiety and depression are the most common [ 6 , 9 ].…”

Family Emotional Climate and Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

“…In non-ASD populations, high parenting stress and poor parental psychological well-being is associated with distant and critical parent-child interactions (Mackler et al, 2015). As a group, parents of children with ASD also report less satisfying parent couple relationships (Sim et al, 2016) and more couple conflicts (Hartley et al, 2017), and are at greater risk for separation/divorce (Baeza-Velasco, Michelon, Rattaz, Pernon, & Baghdadli, 2013;Hartley et al, 2010) than parents of children without ASD. Thus, parents of children with ASD may also be at risk for negative emotional quality parent couple relationships.…”

“…There are no published FMSS studies of parent couple relationship quality in families of children with ASD. Given their group-level risk for unsatisfying, conflict-ridden, and shorter-term couple relationships (Sim et al, 2016;Hartley et al, 2010;Hartley et al, 2017), many families of children with ASD may consist of one or both parents expressing low warmth and high criticism toward her/his partner.…”