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Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) face unique challenges, which may affect parenting functioning. However, little is known about gender and cultural variations in parenting stress and styles in these families. The aims of this study were to investigate: (1a) the differences in parenting stress and (1b) social style between Italian and Japanese mothers and fathers of children with ASD; (2) the predictive role of culture, sociodemographic, and child's characteristics on parenting stress; (3) the predictors of the social parenting style, including parenting stress dimensions. The study involved 92 Italians and 89 Japanese parents of school-age children (5–12 years) with ASD who completed the Parenting Stress Index and the Parenting Style Questionnaire. Results revealed that Japanese parents showed higher parenting stress and less engagement in social style than Italians. Across cultures, mothers used more social style than fathers. Being Japanese and having a child with greater ASD severity predicted higher levels of parenting stress. We also found that country, parent's gender, and stress related to the dysfunctional interaction were significant predictors of parenting social style. Our findings highlight the importance of a cross-cultural approach to better understand the experiences and needs of mothers and fathers of children with ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies on parental interaction in the context of ASD has mainly focused on mothers, even if fathers and their children seem to form close and supportive relationships that may have unique effects on child development. Given the impact of ASD symptoms on a child's ability to interact with significant others, recent findings strengthen the importance of including caregivers during treatment to guarantee a better adaptation to the child's impairments. Despite this, fathers are scarcely involved, and interventions seem to not be tailored to their interactive characteristics and needs. For this reason, a systematic review was conducted to investigate fathers and children with ASD behaviors during interaction. This review found 12 observational studies that identified social, cognitive, and affective interactive modalities in father–child dyads through three psychology-focused journal databases: PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus. The significant variation in both sample size and in the measures used to assess dyadic outcomes limits the ability of this work to make robust recommendations for intervention. Despite this, the results revealed characteristic behaviors of this dyad that consequently allow specific targets to be worked on during intervention. In fact, from fathers' individual strengths and weaknesses, it is possible to implement interventions that are complementary with maternal characteristics from the perspective of personalized and optimized treatment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

(1) Background: Parental involvement during intervention with children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) has been demonstrated to be fundamental for children's developmental outcomes. However, most research focused on child gains especially considering cognitive functioning and symptoms severity, whereas parental and dyadic changes during intervention need further investigation. (2) Methods: 29 mothers in interaction with their preschool children with ASD were analyzed through two standardized behavioral and observational measures to evaluate the dyadic Emotional Availability (EA) and play skills before (T1) and after (T2) a parental-based intervention. (3) Results: Results revealed mothers increased affective quality and major awareness in understanding the signals produced by the child, that in turn was more responsive, involving also using more complex play strategies. Interestingly, the role of specific factors able to predict parental characteristics was investigated, pointing out the important contribution of mothers' perceptions of having a difficult child and child language communicative abilities. (4) Conclusions: the study enhances knowledge about child and caregiver variables that impact on dyadic outcomes, identifying important target areas to be addressed during intervention. Further, our results suggest that a parental-based intervention supports and facilitates improvements in both children's and caregivers' affective quality and cognitive abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An accumulating body of evidence indicates a tight relationship between the endocrine system and abnormal social behavior. Two evolutionarily conserved hypothalamic peptides, oxytocin and arginine-vasopressin, because of their extensively documented function in supporting and regulating affiliative and socio-emotional responses, have attracted great interest for their critical implications for autism spectrum disorders (ASD). A large number of controlled trials demonstrated that exogenous oxytocin or arginine-vasopressin administration can mitigate social behavior impairment in ASD. Furthermore, there exists long-standing evidence of severe socioemotional dysfunctions after hypothalamic lesions in animals and humans. However, despite the major role of the hypothalamus for the synthesis and release of oxytocin and vasopressin, and the evident hypothalamic implication in affiliative behavior in animals and humans, a rather small number of neuroimaging studies showed an association between this region and socioemotional responses in ASD. This review aims to provide a critical synthesis of evidences linking alterations of the hypothalamus with impaired social cognition and behavior in ASD by integrating results of both anatomical and functional studies in individuals with ASD as well as in healthy carriers of oxytocin receptor (OXTR) genetic risk variant for ASD. Current findings, although limited, indicate that morphofunctional anomalies are implicated in the pathophysiology of ASD and call for further investigations aiming to elucidate anatomical and functional properties of hypothalamic nuclei underlying atypical socioemotional behavior in ASD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]