Adolescent coping and family functioning in the family of a child with autism

Autism is on the rise at an alarming rate. Autism impacts all members of a family including siblings. There is much research that examines the etiology of autism but there is little research that explores, from the sibling perspective, what it is like to have a sibling with autism. There are studies that examine coping and the perception of family functioning from the parent perspective, but there are few studies that examine coping and perception of family functioning from the adolescent perspective. The Resiliency Model of Family Stress, Adjustment, and Adaptation (McCubbin & McCubbin, 1993) guided this exploratory, correlational study. The purpose of this study was to examine the coping strategies used by adolescent siblings of children with autism and to examine how these coping strategies influence their perception of family functioning. Qualitative data were collected to help inform the quantitative results. Adolescents 11-21 years of age were recruited through the Interactive Autism Network and completed the measures online via Survey Monkey. The most commonly used coping strategy, as measured by A-COPE, for adolescents in this study was seeking diversion. Females more frequently than males used the coping strategies developing social support, investing in close friends, and relaxing. The younger adolescents used an increased number of and more varied coping strategies than older adolescents. The adolescents perceived that their families functioned in the unhealthy range on five of the seven subscales on the Family Assessment Device with no statistically significant differences between males and females or between age groups on perception of family functioning. Path analysis using multiple regression revealed significant negative relationships between coping strategies, self-concept, satisfaction with the sibling relationship, and family functioning and explained 44.2% of the variance in the proposed model. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the complexities that adolescents who have siblings with autism encounter. Further research is needed to explore additional factors that influence family functioning including examining family functioning with adolescents with typically developing siblings. The development of coping strategies in children and adolescents also needs further exploration.