Research Article Parenting Behavior in Mothers of Preschool Children with ASD: Development of a Self-Report Questionnaire Greet Lambrechts, 1,2 Jarymke Maljaars, 1,2 Hannah Boonen, 1,2 Lotte van Esch, 1,2 Karla Van Leeuwen, 1 and Ilse Noens 1,2 1 Parenting and Special Education Research Unit, University of Leuven (KU Leuven), Leopold Vanderkelenstraat 32, P.O. Box 3765, 3000 Leuven, Belgium 2 Leuven Autism Research (LAuRes), University of Leuven (KU Leuven), 3000 Leuven, Belgium Correspondence should be addressed to Greet Lambrechts; greet.lambrechts@ppw.kuleuven.be Received 15 July 2015; Revised 10 October 2015; Accepted 18 October 2015 Academic Editor: Hansen Wang Copyright © 2015 Greet Lambrechts et al. is is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Parents of young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) encounter many daily challenges and oſten experience much stress. However, little research exists about parenting behavior among these parents. With this study, we aim to address this gap. We examined the structure and internal consistency of a questionnaire intended to measure parenting behavior among mothers of young children with ASD. Furthermore, we compared parenting behavior among mothers of young children with and without ASD between two and six years old. Factor analyses resulted in a factor solution with seven subscales of parenting behavior. Two additional subscales especially relevant for parenting preschoolers with ASD were also considered. Analyses of covariance, controlling for gender and age, showed significantly higher scores for Discipline and Stimulating the Development in the control group in comparison with the ASD group. ese findings suggest that mothers of preschoolers with ASD are still trying to find strategies to guide and stimulate their child’s behavior and development effectively. 1. Introduction Parents of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) encounter many challenges on a daily basis. A great number of studies refer to higher levels of stress among parents of children with ASD when compared to parents of typically developing children or parents of children with other disabil- ities (e.g., [1–5]). Whether parents experience stress or not depends on their coping strategies, informal social support sources, beliefs about the efficacy of the interventions, and the level of autism symptomatology [3]. Apart from the daily stress of raising a child with ASD, parents of young children (between two and six years old) also have to cope with the emotions of a recent ASD diagnosis and the initiation of inter- vention services [6]. Furthermore, during this period, young children are likely to show many “early autism” deficits, such as a lack of social responsiveness, communication skills, joint attention, and interactive play skills. ese deficits can cause considerable concern for parents who may question their own parenting abilities as a result [7]. Literature suggests that parents of young children with ASD who are emotionally unable to accept their family’s situation may have more difficulties attuning to their children’s needs [8]. Despite the evidence that parenting young children with ASD is rather challenging, little research exists about par- enting behavior among parents of young children with ASD as such. Previous research has primarily investigated charac- teristics of the parent-child relationship, such as emotional availability and attachment in families with a young child with ASD [9]. van Ijzendoorn et al. [9], for example, studied sensitivity and attachment in parents of children with ASD using the strange situation procedure [10] and the Emotional Availability Scales (EAS Infancy/Early Childhood Version; [11]). However, in the present study, parenting behavior is rather considered as the observable behavior of parents which plays a role in the socialization of children or the way in which children acquire the social, emotional, and cognitive skills to function in the social community [12]. Literature Hindawi Publishing Corporation Autism Research and Treatment Volume 2015, Article ID 381236, 7 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2015/381236