2017 Gatlinburg Conference Symposium Submission

Overview: Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) report abundant joyful parenting experiences, but also high child-related challenges. There is evidence that these child-related challenges can toll on the couple relationship of some parents of children with ASD. Insight into the potential group-level risk for poor couple relationship quality in parents of children with ASD, within-group variability, and partner effects has critical implications for the functioning of the entire family system. The current symposium uses sophisticated methodology (large samples, comparison groups, self-reported and observed measures) and advanced statistics (multilevel modeling and actor-partner independence models) to understand the couple relationship and its importance in parents who have a child with ASD. The first presentation elucidates couple processes that go awry in the context of high child-related challenges by identifying differences in couple conflict (i.e., parent disagreement or problemsolving) in parents of children with ASD relative to parents of children without disabilities using self-reported and observed measures. The second presentation provides insight into why some parents of children with ASD experience satisfying and healthy couple relationships while others do not by examining mother-father, individual, and family-level factors associated with variability in self-reported couple relationship satisfaction. The third presentation examines coping through a dyadic lens, by investigating how the coping of one parent is linked to the views of family functioning held by the other parent within couples of children with ASD. Each presentation reflects a novel and important contribution to the field. The implications of findings for both theory and family supports are discussed.