Parenting Stress: A Study on Mothers of Children with ASDs in Hangzhou

A total of 71 mothers of children with ASDs participated in this study with 38 of them having a child in preschool level and 33 having a child in elementary school level. The adapted Childhood Autism Rating Scale (CARS-P) and Parental Stress Scale (PSS) were used to examine the severity of autism symptoms and parenting stress perceived by mothers. The result showed that mothers of preschool children experienced a significantly higher level of parenting stress than mothers with elementary school children. The correlation and stepwise regression result indicated that the severity of autism symptoms was the significant predictor to parenting stress for both groups of mothers. Four items of CARS-P scale were significantly correlated to parenting stress of both groups of mothers, which were emotion response, object use, adaptation to change, level or consistency of intellectual response. For mothers of preschool children, another four items related to parenting stress were imitation, body use, visual response, and activity level. For mothers with elementary school children, another three items related to parenting stress were relating to people, taste, smell, and touch response and use, fear or nervousness.