An Exploratory Study of Resilience to Stressful Life Events in Autistic Children

Autistic children experience more stressful life events (SLEs) than their neurotypical peers, which are related to poor mental health outcomes in both neurotypical and autistic individuals. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research assessing the perceived impact of stressful life events on autistic children's mental health.

Utilizing a novel statistical technique (Ratcliff et al., 2019), called 'area of resilience to stress events' or ARSE in R, we aimed to quantify aspects of resilience, growth, and non-resilience for 67 autistic children (6-13 years old) enrolled in a larger longitudinal study who experienced a SLE. Parents reported demographic information (e.g., child age, biological sex, household income) as well as the child's internalizing and externalizing symptoms and autism characteristics across multiple time points spaced one year apart (baseline, T2, T3, T4).

There was substantial variability in the resilience process within the sample. Older children exhibited a less adaptive resilience process (i.e., higher total scaled scores or arse_ts). Perceived stress of the disruptive event was not correlated with resilience; however, there was a significant child age x stress severity interaction, suggesting that younger children in households that perceived the disruptive event as highly stressful exhibited more efficient resilience, or lower arse_ts scores, compared to other children.

This study introduces an innovative methodological approach to understanding the effects of stressful life events on the mental health of autistic children. Results have implications for family-based policy and practice and highlight for whom services may be most beneficial.