Vicarious futurity, hope, and well-being in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder

Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders 7 (2013) 288–297

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Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders Journal homepage: http://ees.elsevier.com/RASD/default.asp

Vicarious futurity, hope, and well-being in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder Daniel J. Faso a,*, A. Rebecca Neal-Beevers b, Caryn L. Carlson b a b

The University of Texas at Dallas, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, United States Department of Psychology, The University of Texas at Austin, United States

A R T I C L E I N F O

A B S T R A C T

Article history: Received 8 June 2012 Received in revised form 28 August 2012 Accepted 28 August 2012

Hope is shown to provide resiliency for parents of children with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs) against the negative effects related to extreme parenting stressors. The broad positivity of hope may overlook opposing parental feelings about their child that may be important for well-being. Vicarious futurity (VF) is the hope and despair a parent feels for the future of their child, which reflects both positive and negative components of parental attitudes directed toward their child. In this study we examined how vicarious futurity related to hope, and how each predicted well-being in 71 parents (53 mothers) of children with ASD. Results indicated that regardless of child symptom severity, vicarious futurity strongly predicted stress experienced by parents, hope predicted depressive symptoms, and both predicted life satisfaction. Vicarious futurity and hope were found to be weakly correlated, indicating that both constructs are largely independent when influencing the well-being of parents raising a child with ASD. General hopefulness is important for parental well-being, but in the unique context of parents raising children with ASD, child focused constructs that measure both positive and negative components, such as vicarious futurity, may be more informative and useful when understanding how parental feelings about their child influence their own well-being. Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Keywords: Autism Parents Well-being Hope Despair Stress

1. Introduction Parents raising a child with ASD are faced with unique and extremely challenging stressors everyday (Duarte, Bordin, Yazigi, & Mooney, 2005; Lee, Harrington, Louie, & Newschaffer, 2008; Sanders & Morgan, 1997). The rising prevalence rate of this lifelong disorder (Baird et al., 2006) increases the urgency for understanding the psychological challenges these parents face and for identifying adjustment methods that mitigate their negative consequences. Compared with parents of typically developing children, parents of children with ASD experience higher rates of depression, stress, and anxiety (Duarte et al., 2005; Sanders & Morgan, 1997). These negative impacts for parents are strongly correlated with the severity of symptoms associated with ASD as well as secondary behavior problems their child exhibits. For instance, behaviors such as tantrums and excessive self-stimulation have been associated with higher stress and depression in parents of children with ASD (Baker, Blacher, & Olsson, 2005; Stuart & McGrew, 2009). Furthermore, parent coping behaviors have been found to influence psychological adjustment, specifically, the use of avoidant coping strategies are related to poorer parental adjustment

Abbreviations: ASDs, autism spectrum disorders; tHope, trait hope; VF, vicarious futurity. * Corresponding author at: The University of Texas at Dallas, 800 West Campbell Rd., Richardson, TX 75080, United States. Tel.: +1 214 755 1742. E-mail address: [email protected] (D.J. Faso). 1750-9467/$ – see front matter . Published by Elsevier Ltd. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rasd.2012.08.014

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(Brobst, Clopton, & Hendrick, 2009; Hastings et al., 2005; Lyons, Leon, Phelps, & Dunleavy, 2010; Stuart & McGrew, 2009). Although these parents are faced with extraordinary stress, some research has investigated aspects of resiliency and found that not all parents experience these deleterious effects (Bitsika & Sharpley, 2004). However, we have yet to sufficiently explore the multitude of individual characteristics and behaviors that may prove more adaptive for these parents, and these uninvestigated factors may be associated with a reduced likelihood to experience diminished parental well-being. Positive psychology is a field that by definition has focused on qualities that contribute to positive adaptation, and recent trends in the field have focused on such things as well-being and life satisfaction in parents and families of children with intellectual disabilities and autism (Baker et al., 2005; Bayat, 2007; Hastings et al., 2005; Lloyd & Hastings, 2008, 2009). Within research in positive psychology, multiple variables have arisen as potential resilience factors that may serve to combat and lessen some of the added stressors experienced by parents of children with ASD. One of these constructs of positive psychology is optimism, which is the expectancy of good or positive outcomes occurring (Scheier & Carver, 1985). Optimism has been reported to relate with improved social support and well-being in mothers of children with ASD (Ekas, Lickenbrock, & Whitman, 2010). Additionally, Kuhn and Carter (2006) investigated another potential resiliency factor, selfefficacy, which is defined as a parent’s feelings of competency in a parenting role (Teti, O’Connell, & Reiner, 1996), and they reported that maternal self-efficacy was related to improved well-being in mothers of children with ASD. Hopefulness is another construct of positive psychology that correlates with a number of beneficial outcomes for people in general, such as better physical health and improved psychological well-being (Snyder et al., 1991; Snyder, Rand, King, Feldman, & Woodward 2002a; Snyder, Rand, & Sigmon, 2002b). Hopefulness, or trait hope (tHope), distinguishes itself from other measures of positivity by focusing on an individual’s perceived goal attainment abilities. For example, optimism focuses on comparative expectancies of good and bad outcomes; therefore, a more optimistic person expects more positive outcomes to occur (Scheier & Carver, 1985). Trait hope on the other hand is a two-part entity consisting of hope pathways (the belief that routes to desired goals can be obtained) and hope agency (the belief that a desired goal can be achieved; Snyder et al., 1991, 2002a, 2002b), and a more hopeful person believes their goals are achievable and that they can find ways to achieve those goals. While optimism broadly refers to general expectancies from life, trait hope is individual specific, focusing on their goals and beliefs about achieving goals. Initial examinations of trait hope in parents of children with intellectual disabilities (including children with ASD) suggest that hopefulness may serve as a resilience factor that is associated with decreased levels of depression and stress (Kashdan et al., 2002; Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). Specifically, Lloyd and Hastings (2009) reported high hope agency and pathways to be associated with decreased levels of depression and stress in mothers and fathers of children with intellectual disabilities, including parents of children with ASD. While the broad positivity of trait hope appears important to parent functioning, it may overlook the possibility that the thoughts and feelings parents have about their children may also influence parent functioning and that these feelings may reflect both positive and negative domains. The importance of weighing both positive and negative aspects are crucial in determining adaptive functioning, especially in terms of desire or goal attainment (Carver & Scheier, 1990; Wrosch, Scheier, Carver, & Schulz, 2003). This may be of particular importance to parents of children with disabilities, as research has shown that being overly optimistic or unrealistic about certain goals or life circumstances (e.g., recovering from severe injuries, caring for a disabled loved one, raising a child with disabilities) can impede on appropriate goal pursuit, while being realistic and proactive about difficult circumstances leads to decreased stress, depression, and maladaptive behavior (Rasmussen, Wrosch, Scheier, & Carver, 2006; Tunali & Power, 1993; Wrosch et al., 2003a; Wrosch, Miller, Scheier, & Brun de Pontet, 2007). Additionally, trait hope as a construct, measures an individual’s general hopefulness, and lacks situational specificity pertaining to their hope. This refers to the fact that trait hope does not identify specific situations or circumstances in which an individual may be more or less hopeful, but only measures an overall degree of hopefulness. Even though trait hope is generally stable across time, circumstantial influences can affect hopefulness relative to a particular situation (Snyder et al., 1991, 2002a, 2002b), and this is crucial when considering how hope functions in the context of parents raising a child with ASD. A new construct that is related to a particular situation is called vicarious futurity and may play a role in the well-being of parents raising a child with ASD. Vicarious futurity (VF) consists of the vicarious hope and vicarious despair an individual has for another, and specific to parents, the feelings of hope and despair a parent has when thinking about their child’s future. A parent’s vicarious futurity is dependent on their feelings for their child, distinguishing this child focused construct from a parent’s trait hope, which focuses on that parent’s general life goals and their perceived abilities to achieve their general life goals. Researchers have examined how the vicarious futurity of parents raising typically developing children compares with the vicarious futurity of parents raising children with disabilities (Wong & Heriot, 2007, 2008). They found that parents of typically developing children generally have low despair and high hopes when thinking about their child’s future. However, parents of children with ASD have significantly lower hope and higher despair for their child (Wong & Heriot, 2007). Given that vicarious futurity reflects both positive and negative components of hopefulness, compared with trait hope, it may more comprehensively reflect the complexity in parents’ thoughts and feelings about their child. As suggested by Ekas et al. (2010), examining both positive and negative components is crucial and necessary to provide the most well-rounded model of wellbeing in parents of children with ASD. To date, no one has explored how vicarious futurity functions in parents of children with ASD and how it relates to facets of parental well-being. Parents of children with ASD are faced with extraordinary challenges daily, and even though recent work in positive psychology has begun to investigate potential resilience factors, there remains a great amount unknown about this growing population of parents. No previous studies have compared vicarious futurity with any other measure of positive psychology

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or well-being. Understanding how this child focused construct relates to parental functioning is vital for bettering the lives of parents raising children with ASD. The purpose of the present study was to explore how vicarious futurity related to trait hope and parental well-being. We hypothesized that more vicarious hope and less vicarious despair would be associated with higher life satisfaction, less parenting stress, and less depressive symptoms experienced by parents. We also hypothesized that increased hopefulness (trait hope) would be related with more vicarious hope and less vicarious despair based on our hypothesis that there will be some relationship between a parent’s general hopefulness and their hopeful/ despairing feelings concerning their child. Additionally, compared with the solely positive nature of trait hope, we hypothesized that the dichotic and child focused nature of vicarious futurity would more strongly predict life satisfaction, depression, and stress experienced by parents raising a child with ASD. 2. Methods 2.1. Participants All 71 parents (53 mothers; 18 fathers) that participated in this study were recruited through the University of Texas Autism Project via email, and each was the biological parent of a child diagnosed with ASD that was between the ages of 4 and 12. The University of Texas Autism Project is an organization that provides services and disseminates knowledge to parents of children with ASD living near Austin, TX. This organization distributed a recruitment to parents on their listserve, providing information on eligibility and how to participate. This was a convenience sample, and even though we have no data on the demographics or number of listserve parents that originally received the email, we do not expect listserve membership biases because joining the listserve distribution list is free for any parent. The mean age of the mothers was 40.04 years (SD = 5.73, range 25–54 years) and the mean age of the fathers was 41.44 years (SD = 6.04, range 33–53 years). Almost 79% of the parents were Caucasian (N = 56), 12.7% were Hispanic/Latino (N = 9), 2.8% were African American (N = 2), and 1.4% were Asian American (N = 1) and 1.4% were American Indian (N = 1). Parents were generally well-educated with 25% (N = 18) having completed a Graduate or Professional degree, 46.5% (N = 33) completed a bachelors degree, 24% (N = 17) completed some college or attended vocational schooling, and 4% (N = 3) received their high school diploma or GED. Parents were also primarily middle to upper middle class in terms of household income with 48% (N = 34) earning over $100,000 annually, 27% (N = 19) earning between $75,000 and 99,999, 15% (N = 11) earning between $50,000 and 74,999, 8.5% (N = 6) earning between $25,000 and 49,999, and only 1 parent earning less than $25,000 annually. 2.2. Procedure Information about the research project was distributed via through the University of Texas Autism Project, and parents that responded expressing interest in participating were sent instructions on how to complete the questionnaires online. Included in the instructions were personalized URL addresses and passwords for each parent, as well as directions to complete the questionnaire alone without the assistance of their spouse or any other person. Parents completed six measures, including a demographic questionnaire assessing the information reported in the Participants section. In recognition of the time needed to participate in this study, parents were entered into a raffle for a Kindle. 2.3. Measures 2.3.1. Autism symptom severity To control for the relationship between parental distress and the child’s ASD symptom severity, we obtained information about the frequency that the parents experience and witness their child’s behaviors associated with ASD. The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale 2nd Edition (GARS-2; Gilliam, 2006) is a 42-item measure that asks parents to report on the frequency with which they observe symptoms associated with autism spectrum disorders. Consistent with the DSM-IV, the symptoms are grouped in three subscales that reflect difficulties with Social Interaction, Communication, and Stereotyped Behaviors. Examples from each subscale include, ‘‘Withdraws, remains aloof, or acts standoffish in group situations,’’ for Social Interaction, ‘‘Repeats words or phrases over and over,’’ for Communication and, ‘‘Avoids establishing eye contact; looks away when eye contact is made,’’ for Stereotyped Behaviors. These scales can be analyzed separately, or standard scores from each scale can be summed together forming a total ASD symptom severity score. In the present study, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .84, .85, and .78 were found for the Social Interaction, Communication, and Stereotyped Behaviors subscales respectively. However, the present research used a total score for ASD symptom severity and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the total score of .91 was found. 2.3.2. Hope and vicarious futurity Each parent’s hopefulness (trait hope) was measured with the Hope Scale (Snyder et al., 1991), which is a 12-item measure of an individual’s hope agency and hope pathways. All items were scored on a 4-point Likert scale where ‘‘1 = Definitely False and 4 = Definitely True’’. Examples of hope agency and hope pathways items are, ‘‘I energetically pursue my goals,’’ and ‘‘I can think of many ways to get out of a jam,’’ respectively. Hope agency and hope pathways scores can be

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summed for a total trait hope score. The Hope Scale has been extensively tested to show high validity and high reliability (Snyder et al., 1991; Snyder, Feldman, Taylor, Schroeder, & Adams, 2000). The first reliability data to be reported on this measures use with parents of children with intellectual disabilities found Cronbach’s alpha coefficients between .69 and .80 for both the hope agency and hope pathways subscales (Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). In the current sample of parents of a child with ASD, Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .71 and .85 were found for parents’ agency and pathways respectively. The Vicarious Futurity Scale (VFS; Wong et al., in preparation) is designed to measure parents’ expectations when thinking of their child’s future. It is a 20-item self-report scale measuring both vicarious hope and vicarious despair. Parents respond using a 5-point Likert scale indicating how well the statement describes their thoughts/feelings about their child. Examples of items from each subscale include: ‘‘I generally believe that my child’s life will be valuable and productive,’’ and ‘‘I often fear that the rest of my child’s life will not be worthwhile.’’ Scores from all 10 items are summed with scores ranging from 0 to 40 and higher scores equate to more vicarious hope or more vicarious despair. Both vicarious hope and vicarious despair subscales have previously shown high internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of .83 for both subscales (Wong & Heriot, 2007). However, no reliability data has been reported for a sample consisting solely of parents of children with ASD, and Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .88 and .85 were found for this particular sample on vicarious hope and vicarious despair subscales respectively. 2.3.3. Parental well-being: life satisfaction, depression, and stress Parental well-being was measured using three separate constructs, each designed to obtain information crucial to positive adjustment and functioning in parents. Overall life satisfaction was measured using The Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS; Diener, Emmons, Larsen, Griffin, 1985). This 5-item self-report scale measures an individual’s cognitive judgments of well-being and current life satisfaction and contains items like, ‘‘I am satisfied with my life,’’ and, ‘‘In most ways my life is close to my ideal’’. Using a 7-point Likert scale, parents reported the extent to which they agreed with each statement, higher scores equating to higher life satisfaction. High internal consistency has been demonstrated in previous reports using the SWLS (Diener et al., 1985; Pavot & Diener, 1993), even in samples of mothers of children with ASD (Ekas, Whitman, & Shivers, 2009). Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of this measure for the present sample was .88, demonstrating high internal consistency similar to previous studies. To measure the degree of current depressive symptoms, parents completed the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; Radloff, 1977), which is a 20-item self-report scale measuring depressive symptoms experienced in the past week. Parents indicated how often they have felt or behaved over the past week to statements like, ‘‘I felt like my life had been a failure’’ using a scale ranging from ‘‘0 = Rarely or None of the Time (Less than 1 day)’’ to ‘‘4 = Most of All of the Time (5–7 days).’’ Positively worded items are reversed scored and higher scores represent more depressive symptoms overall. High internal consistency was found in previous research for this measures use with mothers of children with ASD (Ekas et al., 2009), and similarly, Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was .92 for the current sample of parents of children with ASD. The Parenting Stress Index-Short Form (PSI-SF; Abidin, 1990) was used to measure the amount of stress parents feel within a parenting role. The PSI-SF is a 36-item questionnaire that contains 3 subsections (Parental Distress, Parent–Child Dysfunctional Interaction, Difficult Child) each containing 12-items measuring a specific aspect of stress within the parent–child dyad. Example statements from each subscale include: ‘‘I often have the feeling that I cannot handle things very well’’; ‘‘Most times I feel that my child does not like me and does not want to be close to me’’; and ‘‘My child makes more demands on me than most children.’’ Parents report their agreement with each statement on a 5-point Likert scale from 1 (Strongly Agree) to 5 (Strongly Disagree). Scores are summed for a final stress score, higher numbers equating to more parental stress. This scale has demonstrated high internal consistency, moderate test-retest reliability, and has been utilized in many previous studies investigating parents of children with disabilities (Brobst et al., 2009; Davis & Carter, 2008; Kuhn & Carter, 2006). Each subscale of this measure (Parental Distress, Parent–Child Dysfunctional Interaction, Difficult Child) demonstrated high internal consistency with Cronbach’s alpha coefficients of .89, .81, and .87 respectively. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficient for the total stress score used in this study was .92, also demonstrating high internal consistency for this measure in the sample. 3. Results Mothers and fathers were originally analyzed together, but were subsequently analyzed separately due to previous studies reporting some differences between mothers and fathers when examining this population (Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). A one-way ANOVA was performed to assess differences between mothers and fathers on any measured variable. We found no significant differences in any variable measured between mothers and fathers, and the p-values of the ANOVA can be found in Table 1 along with descriptive statistics. We conducted correlational analyses to examine how vicarious futurity related to trait hope and parental well-being, and even though the ANOVA failed to find significant differences between mothers and fathers scores on variables of interest, analyses revealed differing correlation patterns in some variables between mothers and fathers. Therefore, we report bivariate correlations of all measured variables for parents grouped together in Table 2, as well as correlations for only mothers in Table 3 and only fathers in Table 4. While looking at correlation analyses in mothers (see Table 3), hope agency (r = 33, p < .01) and hope pathways (r = .27, p < .05) were both positively correlated with vicarious hope, but were not significantly related with vicarious despair. For mothers, hope agency was also positively correlated with life satisfaction (r = .34, p < .01) and negatively

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292 Table 1 Descriptive data for measured variables.

Both (N = 71)

Variables

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Hope agency Hope pathways Vicarious hope Vicarious despair Life satisfaction Depression Stress Symptom severity

Mothers (N = 53)

Fathers (N = 18)

Between gender ANOVA:

M

SD

M

SD

M

SD

p-Value

25.5 26.9 24.1 13.4 22.4 13.7 105.2 27.0

7.8 3.9 7.8 7.5 6.9 10.0 23.9 7.9

25.6 26.9 24.3 13.5 22.6 15.0 106.6 27.1

4.0 3.6 7.4 7.4 7.0 9.7 23.4 7.9

25.1 26.6 23.5 13.0 22.0 10.0 101.1 26.7

5.3 4.9 9.0 8.0 6.7 10.3 25.8 8.1

.623 .759 .696 .813 .758 .068 .406 .864

Table 2 Bivariate correlations for measured variables, mothers and fathers (N = 71). Variables 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Hope agency Hope pathways Vicarious hope Vicarious despair Life satisfaction Depression Stress Symptom severity

1.

2.

3. **

– – – – – – – –

.692

4.

.189 .177 – – – – – –

– – – – – – –

5.

6. **

.127 .174 .754** – – – – –

7. **

.417 .355** .322** .282* – – – –

.481 .398** .250* .258* .521** – – –

8.

.219 .266* .469** .559* .416** .548**

.152 .020 .261* .240* .072 .284* .377* –

– –

* Indicates significant correlation at a = .05. ** Indicates significant correlation at a = .01.

correlated with depression (r = .47, p < .01) and child symptom severity (r = .34, p < .01), while hope pathways was only significantly negatively correlated with depression (r = .37, p < .01). Vicarious hope was significantly correlated with all measured variables for mothers, positively with life satisfaction and negatively with depression, stress, and child symptom severity. Vicarious despair was positively correlated with depression, stress, and child symptom severity. Parenting stress was the most strongly correlated outcome variable to both vicarious hope (r = .44, p < .01) and vicarious despair (r = .51, p < .01). Correlation analyses for fathers (see Table 4) formed a slightly different pattern of results. Neither hope agency nor hope pathways were significantly related to either vicarious hope nor vicarious despair. Similar to mothers, hope agency for fathers was positively correlated with life satisfaction (r = .61, p < .01) and negatively correlated with depression (r = .60, p < .01). However, hope agency was also negatively correlated with parenting stress (r = .44, p < .05) unlike for mothers. The largest discrepancy between hope in mothers and fathers emerged within their scores of hope pathways. While we found mothers’ hope pathways scores to significantly negatively correlate with depression, fathers’ hope pathways scores were strongly positively correlated with life satisfaction (r = .67, p < .01) and negatively correlated with depression (r = .52, p < .05) and stress (r = .52, p < .05). One unexpected result was the reversal of the relationship between hope and child symptom severity based on parent gender. While child symptom severity is negatively correlated with hope agency for mothers(r = .34, p < .01), a positive correlation exists between child symptom severity and hope pathways for fathers (r = .405, p < .05).

Table 3 Bivariate correlations for measured variables, mothers (N = 53). Variables 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. *

Hope agency Hope pathways Vicarious hope Vicarious despair Life satisfaction Depression Stress Symptom severity

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

– – – – – – – –

.653** – – – – – – –

.331** .270* – – – – – –

.164 .189 .733** – – – – –

.343** .227 .317** .228 – – – –

.469** .371** .270* .230* .517** – – –

Indicates significant correlation at a = .05. Indicates significant correlation at a = .01.

**

7. .127 .152 .436** .512* .343** .450** – –

8. .339** 155 .310* .243* .150 .305* .422* –

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Table 4 Bivariate correlations for measured variables, fathers (N = 18). Variables 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. *

Hope agency Hope pathways Vicarious hope Vicarious despair Life satisfaction Depression Stress Symptom severity

1. – – – – – – – –

2.

3. **

.760 – – – – – – –

4.

.089 .001 – – – – – –

5.

.057 .148 .814** – – – – –

6. **

.607 .672** .376 .449 – – – –

7. **

.596 .522* .261 .334 .619** – – –

8. *

.438 .522* .569* .683** .656** .784** – –

.263 .405* .150 .229 .236 .236 .256 –

Indicates significant correlation at a = .05. Indicates significant correlation at a = .01.

**

Following correlational analyses, multiples hierarchical linear regressions were performed to investigate how vicarious futurity and hope independently contributed to the prediction of well-being and emotional functioning in parents. Mothers and fathers were grouped together for regression analyses since the ANOVA revealed no significant differences between parent gender in any variable scores (see Table 1) and because the direction of correlations between all predictor and outcome variables were consistent across parent gender. However, parent gender was controlled in all regression analyses to ensure that any variability was accounted for between mothers and fathers. A total vicarious futurity (VF) term was used in regression analyses. Although previous studies using the Vicarious Futurity Scale created a ‘‘global vicarious hopefulness’’ score by summing vicarious hope scores with the reverse scores of vicarious despair, this method limits the variability in the relationship between the subscales. For instance, a parent who scored a 20 on the vicarious hope subscale and 20 on the vicarious despair subscale would receive the same global vicarious hopefulness score as a parent who scored a 40 on the vicarious hope subscale and a 0 on the vicarious despair subscale. To correct for this issue, we created a VF score that reflects the difference score between the two subscales. Our VF score was generated by first calculating the cubed root of both vicarious hope and vicarious despair, and subsequently subtracting the cubed root of vicarious despair from the cubed root of vicarious hope. As vicarious futurity is a relatively novel construct without prior use in analyses similar to those conducted in this study, the procedure and creation of the VF score aimed to provide a representation of an individual’s hope relative to their despair. By first calculating the cubed root of each score, VF accounts for the magnitude of both hope and despair, and by subsequently taking the difference between those roots, the new VF score accounts for the residual difference between each score as well. VF was entered as a predictor in the last step of all applicable regression analyses. Hope agency and pathways were also entered in all regression analyses in the step prior to entering VF. This procedure will assess the unique predictive ability of VF above and beyond that of hope agency and hope pathways. To control for the impacts associated with severity of ASD symptoms, child symptom severity reported by parents was entered as the first step of all multiple linear regressions after controlling for parent gender. A hierarchical linear regression was performed for each outcome variable by entering hope agency and hope pathways simultaneously, and subsequently entering VF in the last step. The results of these analyses can be seen in Table 5. Before entering hope agency, pathways, and Table 5 Regression analysis by dependent variable (DV).

DV: 1. 2. 3. 3. 4. DV: 1. 2. 3. 3. 4. DV: 1. 2. 3. 3. 4.

Life Satisfaction Gender AutSeverity Hope agency Hope pathways VF Depression Gender AutSeverity Hope agency Hope pathways VF Parenting stress Gender AutSeverity Hope agency Hope pathways VF

R

Adj.R2

.485

.177

Beta .019 .000 .317* .085 .239*

.608

.321 .218 .202 .334* .150 .143

.628

.348 .092 .301** .054 .224 .427**

Note: The number next to the variable indicates the block in which it was entered within the regression model. * p < .05, **p < .01.

p-Value .003 .865 .998 .044 .586 .039 .000 .068 .055 .020 .290 .171 .000 .345 .004 .695 .108 .000

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VF into the regression analysis, ASD symptom severity significantly predicted parent depression (b = .28, p = .016) and parental stress (b = .375, p < .01), but not life satisfaction (b = .07, p = .55).1 After entering the final two steps, regression analyses revealed that life satisfaction was significantly predicted by both hope agency (b = .32, p = .04) and VF (b = .24, p = .04), with hope agency arising as the stronger predictor of the two. Hope agency was also the only significant predictor of depressive symptoms (b = .334, p = .02), but was not a significant predictor of parenting stress (b = .05, p = .69). Neither VF nor hope pathways significantly predicted depression (b = .14, p = .17) (b = .15, p = .29), however, VF was the strongest predictor of parenting stress (b = .43, p < .001), above and beyond the effects of hope and the significant effect of child ASD symptom severity (b = .30, p < .01).

4. Discussion A recent surge in the field of positive psychology has focused on identifying factors adaptive for functioning, and although not completely explored, one priority of this research has investigated resilience factors for vulnerable populations. For parents raising a child with ASD, investigators have explored multiple psychological variables as potential resilience factors that may provide protection from the deleterious effects experienced within such stressful parenting conditions (Baker et al., 2005; Ekas et al., 2009, 2010; Hastings et al., 2005; Kuhn & Carter, 2006; Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). Hope is a facet of positive psychology gaining momentum as a vital factor when predicting well-being. Grounded in Hope Theory (Snyder et al., 1991), this goal directed construct is associated with beneficial adjustment (Snyder et al., 2002b) and previous research suggests that hopefulness is a vital part of well-being for parents of children with ASD (Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). However, due to the complicated nature of the parent–child dyad, a generic measure of hopefulness may overlook parental attitudes toward their child, which may also be important to the well-being of parents. The dichotomous and child focused nature of a new construct, vicarious futurity, may be a novel factor that is aiding resiliency in these parents. 4.1. Overview An initial goal of this study was to determine if vicarious futurity and trait hope are related to one another. Contrary to our hypotheses, vicarious futurity was not strongly related with trait hope when considering the data for mothers and fathers together. This may suggest that, in general, trait hope and vicarious futurity reflect two independent constructs and, thus should be considered independently. However, when parents were analyzed separately, a different pattern emerged. Specifically, we found that vicarious hope was associated with trait hope for mothers, but neither vicarious hope nor vicarious despair was associated with trait hope for fathers. Differences between mothers and fathers when examining trait hope are not unexpected and have been observed in previous studies (e.g., Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). We also sought to explore the relationship between vicarious futurity and well-being of parents raising a child with ASD. As seen in Table 2, correlational data indicated that more vicarious hope was associated with more life satisfaction, less parenting stress, and less depression for both parents when considering mothers and fathers together. The opposite effect was found for vicarious despair, where more vicarious despair was associated with less life satisfaction, more parenting stress, and more depression when considering mothers and fathers together. In other words, both vicarious hope and vicarious despair were associated with greater well-being for these parents. Another goal of this study was to investigate the unique contributions of vicarious futurity and trait hope to our indices of parental well-being, while taking into account their child’s autism symptom severity. As seen in Table 5, multiple hierarchical regressions revealed different patterns of prediction from trait hope and vicarious futurity depending on the outcome variable. Vicarious futurity, in conjunction with hope agency, significantly predicted life satisfaction, while autism symptom severity did not significantly predict life satisfaction. In contrast, regression analyses revealed that vicarious futurity strongly predicted parenting stress, even when taking into account the contribution of ASD symptom severity such that greater vicarious futurity predicted lower parenting stress. Trait hope, however, did not significantly predict parenting stress. Regression analyses also revealed that trait hope was a significant predictor of depression, above and beyond ASD symptom severity such that greater trait hope predicted lower depression symptoms. Vicarious futurity, however, did not predict depression symptoms. These data replicate previous findings showing that more hopefulness is often predictive of a less depressive symptoms experienced (Kashdan et al., 2002; Lloyd & Hastings, 2009). 4.2. Implications This is the first study of its kind to examine the predictive validity of vicarious futurity to the well-being of parents of children with autism. The initial bivariate analyses suggest that vicarious futurity may be a factor contributing to resilience for parents of children with ASD. Additionally, differences were found in how vicarious futurity related to trait hope in mothers and fathers, which suggests that mother’s trait-based tendency to be hopeful may be linked to their feelings of hope

1 Regression analyses were conducted using the GARS-2 subscales. No subscale significantly predicted either life satisfaction or depression, but the total GARS-2 score and social interaction subscale predicted parental stress. Thus, the pattern of prediction was no different for the subscale versus total scores.

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and despair for their child, whereas fathers feelings of hope and despair for their child does not appear to be linked to their trait-based tendency to be hopeful. Furthermore, we investigated how trait hope and vicarious futurity each influenced well-being of parents experiencing high demands within the parent–child dyad. Vicarious futurity and hope agency were both related with parental life satisfaction, suggesting that both greater overall hopefulness and greater hope about one’s child are each influential in determining overall satisfaction with life. Additionally, our findings suggest that vicarious futurity may be a very influential factor, above and beyond ASD symptom severity when predicting the stress experienced in a parenting role. This is vital information for parents of children with ASD, as these parents are faced with extraordinary parenting challenges and stressors. Vicarious futurity focuses on how a parent feels about their child, in both positive and negative terms, and the child-focused nature of this construct may be leading to the strong relationship with the stress parents experience while raising their child. This effect persists regardless of the child’s ASD symptom severity. Thus, these findings may have important implications for parents of a child with severe autism symptoms as previous research has shown symptom severity to be one of the strongest correlates with parental stress (Baker et al., 2005; Stuart & McGrew, 2009). The results of the current study may suggest potential entry points for interventions focused on modifying vicarious futurity with the goal of reducing parenting stress. Hope agency was found to more consistently predict well-being in parents of children with ASD compared with hope pathways. This finding is in line with recent research by Lloyd and Hastings (2009), who found hope agency to more reliably predict parental well-being compared to hope pathways in parents of children with intellectual disabilities. They suggested that agency may be more pertinent to well-being in parents of children with intellectual disabilities since agency forms the motivational aspect of hopefulness, driving parents to persist through the stressors associated with raising their child. Hope agency was the only significant predictor of parental depression, suggesting that the motivational component of hope is more crucial for determining general depressive symptoms than hope pathways or the child-focused measure, vicarious futurity. Feelings of parents’ personal hopefulness and feelings directed toward their child both seem to be vital when examining holistic well-being in parents of children with ASD. Vicarious futurity includes dichotomous feelings of both hope and despair about one’s child and appears to be distinct from trait hope. This distinction is particularly evident in fathers, suggesting that it is important to consider both trait hope and vicarious futurity when examining predictors of parent depression and parenting stress, especially for fathers of children with ASD, who are often underrepresented in research. Furthermore, the results of this study suggest that vicarious futurity may help to reduce parenting stress and increase life satisfaction in parents of children with autism. Thus, it may be important to consider vicarious futurity as a potential mechanism for building resilience in parents of children with autism. 4.3. Limitations and future directions Despite the important contribution to our understanding of parents of children with autism, a few limitations of this study should be noted. First, the sample consisted of mainly upper-middle class, Caucasian adults. Therefore, the results of this study may not be generalizable to lower SES and/or ethnic minority families. Future studies should look to include a more socioeconomically and ethnically diverse sample. Additionally, the data from this study were derived from parent report measures given at one time, and it must be noted that self-report measures may contain similarly worded questions, which may influence the strength of some correlations. As the measure of child autism symptom severity (GARS-2) was also a parental self-report measure, we are limited in our understanding of the child’s formal diagnosis. The GARS-2 assesses the frequency at which a parent witnesses their child’s behaviors associated with ASD, and parents’ subjective experience of these occurrences can be highly influential to parenting stress and well-being as reported in this study. However, incorporating aspects of observational data pertaining to child autism symptom severity and obtaining a more formal diagnosis of the child, in particular, may provide greater depth to our understanding of the influence of autism presentation on parental well being, taken in the context of vicarious futurity. No data was gathered on quality of intervention and education the child had received or on the quality of parental training the parents’ had received. Therefore, we do not know the extent to which family support services influence vicarious futurity, hope, and parental well-being. Future research investigating vicarious futurity and well-being in parents of children with autism should address the limitations of the current study and expand the research design in the following ways. Future studies should consider implementing a longitudinal design that incorporates some evaluation of quality of provided services in order to more fully evaluate what could be a nuanced relationship between these variables. Longitudinal studies might also investigate how vicarious futurity changes over time for parents of children with ASD, beginning at the time of diagnosis and following throughout development of their child. Previous studies have found that multiple factors of well-being vary in parents during the development of their child with ASD (Bristol, 1987; Hartley et al., 2010; Stuart & McGrew, 2009), and investigating how vicarious futurity changes across time is vital to fully understand this relatively new construct. Another interesting avenue for future studies would be to investigate how vicarious futurity relates with other constructs of positive psychology, such as optimism or positive affect, and whether vicarious futurity mediates known relationships between these variables and aspects of parental well-being. These findings could also lead to the development of future interventions directed at increasing well-being in parents of children with ASD. Blackledge and Hayes (2006) conducted a two-day training program utilizing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy as a path to well-being for parents of children with ASD and found decreased levels of depression 3 months following the treatment. Similar methods intending to increase a parent’s hopeful

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feelings for their child and decrease feelings of despair for their child may boost parental resilience to stressful experiences. However, we know vicarious futurity is not the sole contributor to parental well-being, and we must acknowledge that other psychological and environmental factors, such as optimism and social support, influence well-being in parents of children with ASD (Ekas et al., 2010). Interventions exclusively aiming to improve vicarious futurity and hopefulness in parents may be optimized when combined with other high-quality, evidence based services. As noted by Cappe, Wolff, Bobet, and Adrien (2011), increasing well-being for these parents requires a well-rounded approach that meets the appropriate needs of each individual. High quality and effective programs begin by identifying the specific issues most detrimental to parental quality of life, which determines the appropriate treatment for that individual. Future intervention strategies should strive to concurrently provide parent and child focused training and treatment. The present study expands on previous research, as well as explores a completely novel aspect of well-being for parents of children with ASD. While this is a first step in understanding how feelings of hope and despair about one’s child influences the amount of stress and depression experienced by a parent, there is still much to be explored on this topic. The results of the present study, and further work in this field, may provide a detailed understanding of how vicarious futurity can be incorporated into future research and intervention methods designed to assist parents of children with ASD. Conflict of interest The authors declare no conflicts of interest. Acknowledgements We would like to thank the University Co-operative Society at The University of Texas at Austin for providing funding for this research. 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