Building Bonds: An Examination of Emotional Closeness Between Mothers and Their Children with ASD

Background:  

A number of studies suggest that families of children with Autism-Spectrum Disorders (ASD) have higher levels of stress, more depression and anxiety, and lower levels of marital satisfaction and family adaptability than families with Typically-Developing (TD) children. Given the impact of ASD on family systems, recent work has focused on revealing the family dynamics of this population. Unfortunately, however, little attention has been given to specific protective factors that may promote family resilience such as emotional closeness between children with ASD and their caregivers.

Objectives:

The purpose of this study was to identify factors that promote or inhibit emotional closeness between mothers and their children with ASD. In addition, we hoped to reveal factors that could increase closeness between mothers and their children with ASD.

Methods:

Participants consisted of 11 mothers of children with ASD (ages 4-8) in the Central New York area. Semi-structured interviews were conducted to identify factors that promote, inhibit, or may increase emotional closeness between mothers and their children. Interviews were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. Five raters read the transcripts and were trained to code when mothers discussed activities that promoted, inhibited, or increased emotional closeness. Inter-rater reliability analysis revealed a mean intra-class correlation coefficient of .967 across coders. A grounded theory approach was utilized to extract and code relevant items from the transcripts, to group similar concepts, and to form hierarchical categories. From these categories, basic themes were developed to reflect the mothers’ experiences of closeness with their children.

Results:

Results revealed that a wide variety of factors influence mothers’ feelings of emotional closeness with their children. Despite a diverse set of responses, approximately 50% of the variance was accounted for by three themes: 1) Mothers most often cited a “special relationship” with their children as the biggest contributor to feelings of emotional closeness, followed by 2) accomplishments of their children and 3) physical contact. When questioned about increasing emotional closeness, over 50% of the variance was accounted for by 1) a desire for improved verbal skills, 2) an increase in social interaction, and 3) miscellaneous idiosyncratic responses that were specific to the parent-child relationship. Lastly, mothers most often cited noncompliance and feelings of parental helplessness as themes that were associated with feelings of distance from their children.

Conclusions:

Results from our study suggest that it may be possible to target individual factors that promote or inhibit emotional closeness, which may assist families of children with ASD that struggle to build positive relationships. In particular, targeting interactions that promote a “special bond” between mothers and their children and helping parents to manage noncompliance may be the most effective strategies to assist with the formation of strong parent-child relationships.