Parental Stress, Affective Symptoms and Marital Satisfaction in Parents of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Rebecca Lovisotto, Nerina J. Caltabiano, Karim Hajhashemi

Introduction
Parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), a life-long developmental disorder, responded to an online survey considering their stress experience, affective symptoms and marital satisfaction. As these parents sourced different programs for their children, type of program was used to assign parents to different groups in order to consider their stress, affective symptoms and marital satisfaction. The type of programs parents used included the Applied Behaviour Analysis (n=15); Early Intervention Centre (n=13) and no formal program (n=16). Parents of children with ASD in the ABA group reported significantly lower parental stress scores, lower affective symptoms scores and higher marital satisfaction scores compared to the other two groups. These results are suggestive of the beneficial effect that an ABA program can have on the family unit.

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