Empowerment and Parent Gain as Mediators and Moderators of Distress in Mothers of Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders

Mothers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) experience considerable amounts of distress and experiences of crisis. The Family Adjustment and Adaptation Response model provides a theory for understanding the experience of distress and family crisis in families, and the purpose of the present study was to examine experiences of distress in mothers of individuals with ASD using this framework. We specifically investigated how parent empowerment and positive gain are related to their experiences of distress, whether as mediators or as moderators of child aggression. Participants included 156 mothers of children with ASD ranging in age from 4 – 21 years. Mothers completed an online survey of demographics, problem behaviors, family empowerment, positive gain, and distress. We conducted path analyses of multiple mediation and moderation. Results indicated that greater child problem behavior was related to less parent empowerment, which was related to greater maternal distress, supporting empowerment as a partial mediator. At the same time, greater child aggression was not related to maternal distress in mothers who report high rates of positive gain, suggesting that parent gain functions as a moderator. The implications for how and when clinicians intervene with families of children with ASD are discussed

Tracking Subtle Stereotypes of Children with Trisomy 21: From Facial-Feature-Based to Implicit Stereotyping

Background: Stigmatization is one of the greatest obstacles to the successful integration of people with Trisomy 21 (T21 or Down syndrome), the most frequent genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability. Research on attitudes and stereotypes toward these people still focuses on explicit measures subjected to social-desirability biases, and neglects how variability in facial stigmata influences attitudes and stereotyping. Methodology/Principal Findings: The participants were 165 adults including 55 young adult students, 55 non-student adults, and 55 professional caregivers working with intellectually disabled persons. They were faced with implicit association tests (IAT), a well-known technique whereby response latency is used to capture the relative strength with which some groups of people—here photographed faces of typically developing children and children with T21—are automatically (without conscious awareness) associated with positive versus negative attributes in memory. Each participant also rated the same photographed faces (consciously accessible evaluations). We provide the first evidence that the positive bias typically found in explicit judgments of children with T21 is smaller for those whose facial features are highly characteristic of this disorder, compared to their counterparts with less distinctive features and to typically developing children. We also show that this bias can coexist with negative evaluations at the implicit level (with large effect sizes), even among professional caregivers

Prevalence of challenging behaviour in adults with intellectual disabilities, correlates, and association with mental health

Purpose of Review To summarise findings about the prevalence and correlates of challenging behaviour in adults with intellectual disabilities from robust research. We also describe findings on the interplay between challenging behaviour and mental health. Recent Findings Recent studies that have utilised psychometrically evaluated tools, with clear operational definitions, show similar findings on the prevalence of challenging behaviour of about 1 in every 5–6 adults known to services. We describe common correlates identified such as communication impairments, severity of intellectual disability, and living in institutional settings or congregate care. We also describe the complex and multifaceted relationship between challenging behaviour and mental health. Summary Based on recent studies, we propose a revised framework model to help understand challenging behaviour. We propose a number of areas where more research is required, particularly the development of risk tools clinicians can utilise in practice

Towards a Decision Support Tool for Assessing, Managing and Mitigating Seismic Risk of Electric Power Networks

Recent seismic event worldwide proved how fragile the electric power system can be to seismic events. Decision Support Systems (DSSs) could have a critical role in assessing the seismic risk of electric power networks and in enabling asset managers to test the effectiveness of alternative mitigation strategies and investments on resilience. This paper exemplifies the potentialities of CIPCast, a DSS recently created in the framework of the EU-funded project CIPRNet, to perform such tasks. CIPCast enables to perform risk assessment for Critical Infrastructures (CI) when subjected to different natural hazards, including earthquakes. An ad-hoc customization of CIPCast for the seismic risk analysis and management of electric power networks is featured in this paper. The international literature describes effective and sound efforts towards the creation of software platforms and frameworks for the assessment of seismic risk of electric power networks. None of them, unfortunately, achieved the goal of creating a user-friendly and ready available DDS to be used by asset managers, local authorities and civil protection departments. Towards that and building on the international literature, the paper describes metrics and methods to be integrated within CIPCast for assessing the earthquake-induced physical and functional impacts of the electric power network at component and system level. The paper describes also how CIPCast can inform the service restoration process

Stress among parents of children with and without autism spectrum disorder: a comparison involving physiological indicators and parent self-reports

Parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) have been reported as experiencing higher levels of stress and poorer physical health than parents of typically developing children. However, most of the relevant literature has been based on parental self-reports of stress and health. While research on physiological outcomes has grown in recent years, gaps still exist in our understanding of the physiological effects, if any, of stress related to parenting a child with ASD. The present study compared parent-reported stress, anxiety, and depression, as well as selected physiological measures of stress (i.e., cortisol, alpha-amylase, and ambulatory blood pressure and heart rate) between matched groups of parents of children with (N = 38) and without (N = 38) ASD. Participants completed questionnaires, collected saliva samples for the purpose of measuring cortisol and alpha-amylase, and wore an ambulatory blood pressure monitor for 24 h. Parents of children with ASD reported significantly higher levels of parental distress, anxiety, and depression than parents of typically developing children. Parent-reported distress, anxiety, depression, and health were not correlated with physiological measures. With the exception that parents of children with ASD had significantly lower cortisol levels 30 min after waking, no other significant group differences were found for physiological measures. Parents of children with ASD reported significantly higher use of a number of adaptive coping strategies (e.g., emotional support) in comparison to parents of typically developing children. Results are discussed in the context of implications for future research directions, stress research, and practical implications for parental support