UC Santa Barbara

Research has consistently demonstrated that parents of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) experience elevated levels of stress when compared to parents of typically developing and developmentally disabled children. High levels of stress have been associated with negative parenting practices, poor parental mental health, and negative child outcomes, including reducing the positive effects of intervention for children with autism. Regardless, there is limited research on direct support for parents. One promising area of therapeutic support focuses on mindfulness. Mindfulness is associated with increased life satisfaction, decreased depression and anxiety, and improved emotion regulation. Due to the normative levels of stress that come with parenting in general, researchers have introduced mindfulness to parents. A literature review identified 6 studies that have implemented some form of mindfulness training specifically with parents of children with autism, all showing promising outcomes. The current study aimed to assess whether an 8-week Mindful Parenting group program positively impacted parents’ reported level of mindfulness, parenting stress and parent-child relationship quality. Twenty-one parents participated and met for 90 minutes weekly in a group format. Self-report questionnaires were collected at intake (pre), after 4 weeks (mid), after completion of the group (post), and at a 5-week follow up session (follow up). Results of within-subject repeated measures analyses of variance (rANOVA) revealed that participation in the group decreased parenting stress, increased overall mindfulness and decreased relational frustration within the parent-child relationship after 8 weeks of participation. These changes were only significant for parenting stress when the follow up data was included in the analysis. Large to medium effects were found for all variables from intake to post and follow up assessment, suggesting clinically meaningful changes in these important areas. The results of the current study suggest that providing group training in mindfulness is a feasible support for parents of children with autism. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed further.