A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF A PARENTAL STRESS MEASURE FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS AND DOWN SYNDROME
A PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION OF A PARENTAL STRESS MEASURE FOR PARENTS OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDERS AND DOWN SYNDROME

Summary/Abstract: Parents of children with disabilities were identified as presenting higher levels of negative emotions, higher risks for psychopathology and physical illness, as well as higher levels of distress, compared to parents of children with typical development. In general, more attention towards the needs of the parents who have children with disabilities in Romania is necessary, but research on the topic is scarce. Our preliminary study of parental stress is centered mainly on testing the reliability of the translated and adapted version of the Parental Stress Scale (Berry and Jones, 1995) on a Romanian sample of parents of children with ASD and Down Syndrome. Our results show that the parents of children with ASD and Down Syndrome do not report high levels of distress attached to their parental role and that the level of parental distress increases with the child’s age. The scale proved to be a valid measure of parental stress in parents of ASD and Down Syndrome children, but future validation on larger samples of parents of children with disabilities is needed.

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