| Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) are a significant and growing population of students in educational settings. Parents of children with ASD must interact with members of their child's educational team and reach consensus concerning the appropriate educational setting and placement for their children. Often, parents and school personnel have different opinions as to what constitutes appropriate services for the child. This difference of opinion results in an adversarial relationship between parents and the educators involved with the child. The present study measured three factors - hostile attitudes, anger, and positive attitude (as measured by a revision of the Silver Lining Questionnaire in three groups of parents. Participants included parents of children with ASD, parents of children with Intellectual Disability, and parents of children with no disability. Participants completed a survey designed to measure the three factors; the survey included items from the Silver Lining Questionnaire (SLQ), the Parent Anger Scale (PAS), and several items created for the present study. Parents from the ASD group, the ID group and the Control group responded similarly to test items and there were no significant differences between groups. Parents of children with ID scored higher than parents from the ASD group on a specialized scale measuring hostile attitudes toward the school district, which was contrary to the hypothesized results. Parents of children with ID scored higher than both parents of children with ASD and control group parents on the SLQ, but no significant differences were found between groups. Future use of the questionnaire is discussed. |
