COPING WITH AUTISM - STRESSES AND STRATEGIES

This paper presents the results of a qualitative study of coping stresses and strategies among a sample of parents with autistic children. The most serious stresses that parents faced included problems with the lack of normal language, disruptive and violent behaviour, inappropriate eating and toileting and inappropriate sexual expression. Most parents used a variety of coping strategies, the most common of which included the use of service agencies, family support, social withdrawal, religion, normalisation, individualism and activism. Although no single coping strategy seemed to provide a definitively better outcome for the parents' adjustment, the use of services and family support appeared to provide the most successful strategy of coping for a substantial number of parents.