Autism is a life-long developmental disorder involving severe impairment in social and communicative functioning and markedly restricted interests and activities. Despite widespread recognition that having a child with autism is a devastating loss, and speculation about the factors that might complicate parental adjustment this is the first empirical study of parents response to their child's diagnosis with autism. Similarly, while it is clearly quite difficult to convey a diagnosis of autism to parents, this communicative process has not been studied. The proposed research aims to detail the stages parents go through in adaptive grieving/coping with the news of their child's diagnosis with autism. Goals of the study include examination of 1) associations among resolution of parental grief/adaptive coping and children's developmental progress one year following diagnosis, controlling for initial level of functioning; 2) parental/family factors that may influence parents grieving over and adapting to their child's diagnosis through assessment of parental characteristics and family environment prior to the child's diagnosis (e.g., personality traits; insecure working models of attachment relationships; history of major depression; degree of social support; family resources and stresses; religious beliefs); and 3) child characteristics that may influence parents grieving over and adapting to their child's diagnosis (i.e., social relatedness, attachment security, mental/language ability). A central objective of this study is to discern strategies for identifying parents most at risk for enduring difficulty adjusting to their child's diagnosis, and to gain insight into preventive interventions.
