Parental stress and social life in the Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD )

Parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) experience higher stress levels in their lives, yet often underestimated. The influencing factors are different: the moment of diagnosis, child difficulties, parent’s status, the socio-economic situation of the family, services the child receives, etc. This study aimed to study the stress that parents of ASD children experience in their lives compared to parents with typically developing children. The study was conducted using the following instruments: Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF) (Abidin, 1990, 1995; Guarino et al., 2008), Symptom Checklist -90-Revised (SCL-90-R; Derogatis, 1994), SF – 12. The study involved 30 parents of children with ASD and 30 parents of children with typical development. Results indicates that parental stress is an important concept in ASD issues. Parents of children with ASD reported more parental stress than parents of children with typical development. In addition, with this focus in the research to parental stress is a good opportunity to other studies about families and parents of ASD children to better implications for services and early interventions.