RESEARCH PAPER 2
Running head: RESEARCH PAPER 1
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Psychosocial Correlates of Parenting a Child with Autistic Disorder
Introduction
This study was done to establish the connection between the parents and a child who has autism and how the parents are coping up with bringing up the child and their behaviour towards the child. A child with autism has to be taken care of by the parents because of the special treatment they need when growing up. Raising a child with autism is considered one of the most stressing events in parenthood because the child is not like any other, (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014).
(Dardas & Ahmad, 2014) Describe how autistic children show dysfunctional behaviours which affect their quality of life and how the parents of these children face numerous challenges when raising these children. According to (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014) parents who have children with autism have high levels of stress than parents with normal children and parents with children with other developmental issues. Among the factors, they discussed as affecting the parents include parents age, parents incomes, time since autistic disorder diagnosis and the coping strategies that the patents used in this situation, (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014).
Study design and analysis
This study used an exploratory research design to study the relationship and the behaviour between the parents and the children and how other factors may influence raising the child. The authors then used a canonical correlation multivariate analysis to examine the relationships between the parent and the autistic child in a bid to understand the relationship between them.
Independent and dependent variables
The independent variables in the study included the child severity, parental stress, parental age, self-control and the positive impact the parents have on the child. The dependent variable included the parent’s income, social support, parents level of education, parent’s gender and the time frame since the child was diagnosed with autism.
Population sample
The population sample of the research study was 184 Jordanian parents who had autistic children with 62% of the participants (114) being females while the rest were males. All the children who were addressed in this study had autism while their parents were not, (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014).
Discussion
The researchers found out that parents with strong social support had a good relationship and coping mechanism when raising an autistic child their level of stress was low compared the parents who had poor social support and had a low-income level.
In the study (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014) noted that parents with a higher income level had a better quality of life and their children had good and better social support compared to low-income families. The time since diagnosis also has an influence, the authors found out that when a child is diagnosed with autism most parents are usually in denial and tend to not associate with the child, but as the child gets older the parents accept responsibility and start planning for the future of the child, (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014).
Some of the coping strategies the parents used include wishful thinking and behavioural efforts to avoid facing the problem although some of the researchers are against this method because it leads to a negative impact on the children and they cannot develop properly because of the absence of the parents love. They also noted that coping strategy of accepting the responsibility for the autistic child was associated with higher parenting stress and low quality of life among the families as they keep blaming themselves for the situation, (Dardas & Ahmad, 2014).
The authors concluded by stating that the mental health outcomes of the child and the parents are influenced by the social and the demographic factors surrounding them. Different factors have a different impact on both the child and the parents hence the need to have a positive environment while raising the autistic child.
References
Dardas, L. A., & Ahmad, M. M. (2014). Psychosocial correlates of parenting a child with autistic disorder. Journal of Nursing Research, 22(3), 183-191.