To inform parent-mediated intervention models, this study assessed if family affectedness (i.e., elevated autism symptoms in more than one child) was associated with maternal self-reported social difficulties (as indexed by the Social Responsiveness Scale; SRS-2), and social interactions during play. As part of a prospective study, 71 mothers…

This study aimed to examine the influence of differences in household status on the parental stress, coping, time use and quality of life (QoL) among mothers of children with autism spectrum disorders. Forty-three single and 164 coupled mothers completed the survey. Data were analysed using multivariate logistic regression. We found that single…

Identifies difficulties in the task of finding the genes involved in causing autism, such as the unknown mechanism of inheritance, small size of families with an autistic child, the rarity of parent-child pairs, and the large number of genes that may be involved. Several strategies for finding relevant genes are discussed. (Author/DB)

"Stoppage rules" (responses of parents to the question of having more children when a child has been born seriously handicapped) are discussed. The paper shows that application of stoppage rules to a recent study of 46 families shows that the segregation ratio was underestimated in the original report. (Author/DB)

This study examined the relationship between (1) sex and family size of 33 siblings of autistic children; and (2) siblings' performance on achievement, self-concept, home behavior, and school behavior measures. Overall, the siblings' performance was not suggestive of a need for special intervention. (Author/JDD)