Title Tėvų, auginančių autizmo spektro sutrikimą turinčius vaikus, psichosocialiniai iššūkiai /
Translation of Title Psychosocial challenges of parents raising children with autism spectrum disorder.
Authors Šulmaitė, Gabrielė
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Pages 55
Keywords [eng] autism spectrum disorder ; stressors ; parenting stress
Abstract [eng] This Master’s thesis will seek to research psychological and social challenges of parents who are raising children with autism spectrum disorder. There will be the analysis of various psychological and social factors which cause parenting stress for the parents having children with autism spectrum disorder in this work. In the theoretical part, psychosocial characteristics of children with autism spectrum disorder along with the perception of parenting stress, stress models and struggles experienced by parents will be reviewed. The main goals of this work were to find out what psychological and social challenges parents raising children with autism spectrum disorder are facing as well as to compare their stress level with the one of parents raising children without this disorder. To determine that, a qualitative research, made from 2 surveys, was conducted. In the 1st one, 200 parents raising children with autism spectrum disorder participated whereas the 2nd one had 201 parents who have children without this disorder. The most important conclusions from the empirical research were: 1) Parents who are raising children with autism spectrum disorder, experience larger parenting stress while compared to the parents having children without this disorder. These families have more significant financial difficulties and bigger challenges while planning and fitting responsibilities. They have less opportunities to choose and control their own lives by themselves. Also, families with children having autistic spectrum disorder experience larger levels of stress caused directly by children and feel having too little time and flexibility in comparison to families without children having autistic spectrum disorder. 2) Families raising children with autism spectrum disorder experience larger levels of parenting stress according to the results of subscales in parental satisfaction, lack of control and parental achievements. 3) While raising children with autism spectrum disorder, parental stressors (social and psychological) have the largest impact on the lack of parental control whereas parental satisfaction is affected less and parental achievements the least. Meanwhile, parental satisfaction and parental achievements are significantly related to the lack of control. Demographic features of parents (gender, age, education, marital status) was not significant at all regarding any impact on parenting stress. The hypothesis, that parents who are raising children with autism spectrum disorder are experiencing larger levels of stress than parents who are raising children without this disorder, was proven.
Dissertation Institution Šiaulių universitetas.
Type Master thesis
Language Lithuanian
Publication date 2020