Valencia Medina Jesus Alejandra, Rios Kristina, Aleman-Tovar Janeth, Burke Meghan M
Pomona College, Claremont, CA, USA.
Department of Special Education, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, IL, USA.
Int J Dev Disabil. 2020 Jan 20;68(2):122-130. doi: 10.1080/20473869.2019.1706332. eCollection 2022.
Research suggests that child problem behavior and poor family-school partnerships contribute to maternal stress in families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, most extant research focuses only on White families even though Latina mothers of children with ASD experience greater systemic barriers impacting parent well-being and access to school services. Using individual interviews, this study investigates the pattern between school perceptions, child behavior, and psychological well-being among 13 Latina mothers of school-aged children with ASD. This sample was selected based on their elevated scores on the Difficult Child subscale of the Parenting Stress Index. Findings indicate that all participants reported feeling fear, frustration, worry and stress due to their child's behavior. Specifically, participants worried about their child's safety and expressed frustration with their child's problem behavior. Notably, participants reported mixed responses regarding the schools' actions to address their children's behavior. Implications for research and practice are discussed with respect to family-school partnerships among Latina mothers.
研究表明，儿童的问题行为以及不良的家庭 - 学校合作关系会给自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）儿童家庭中的母亲带来压力。然而，尽管患有ASD儿童的拉丁裔母亲在影响家长幸福感和获得学校服务方面面临更大的系统性障碍，但大多数现有研究仅关注白人家庭。本研究通过个人访谈，调查了13位患有ASD的学龄儿童的拉丁裔母亲在学校认知、孩子行为和心理健康之间的模式。该样本是根据她们在《养育压力指数》困难儿童子量表上的高分挑选出来的。研究结果表明，所有参与者都表示由于孩子的行为而感到恐惧、沮丧、担忧和压力。具体而言，参与者担心孩子的安全，并对孩子的问题行为表示沮丧。值得注意的是，参与者对学校解决孩子行为问题的行动反应不一。文中就拉丁裔母亲家庭与学校合作关系方面讨论了研究和实践的意义。
