Evidence of resilience in families of children with autism
M. Bayat
School of Education, DePaul University, Schmitt Academic Center, Chicago, IL, USA
Abstract
Background Family resilience is a growing field of
inquiry, investigating factors that contribute to a
family’s becoming stronger in spite of dealing with
adversity. Despite the growing interest in studying
family resilience, the topic has not been explored in
families with children who have disabilities. This
report, a part of a larger study – using both quanti-
tative and qualitative methodologies – is an exami-
nation of factors of family resilience in the families
of children with autism. Evidence of family resil-
ience such as family connectedness and closeness,
positive meaning-making of the disability, and spiri-
tual and personal growth were identified and exam-
ined in this part of the study.
Method The study uses a survey methodology,
analysing responses to several rating scales and
written responses to three open-ended questions.
Survey respondents consisted of parents and
other primary caregivers of a child with autism –
ages between and years.
Results Results suggest identification of specific
resilience processes, such as: making positive
meaning of disability, mobilization of resources, and
becoming united and closer as a family; finding
greater appreciation of life in general, and other
people in specific; and gaining spiritual strength.
Conclusions This study presents evidence that a
considerable number of families of children with
autism display factors of resilience – reporting
having become stronger as a result of disability in
the family.
Keywords autism, disability, family, meaning,
resilience, strength
Introduction
During the past decade, a number of family
researchers have been interested in finding why
some families facing adversity manage to function
well and come out stronger, while others when
faced with a similar situation do not (Cowan et al.
; McCubbin et al. ; Walsh ; Patterson
). This has led to the development of a field of
inquiry called family resilience. Resilience has been
described as the ability to withstand hardship and
rebound from adversity, becoming more strength-
ened and resourceful (Walsh ). The concept of
family resilience and its focus on factors leading to
a family’s well functioning in view of a crisis is part
of a movement in positive psychology (Seligman &
Csikszentmihalyi ) towards identifying factors
of health as opposed to factors of pathology
(Antonovsky ; Antonovsky & Sourani )
that has been the traditional approach in develop-
mental and clinical psychology.
Family resilience has been looked at either as an
interaction of two groups of risk and protective
Correspondence: Mojdeh Bayat, School of Education, DePaul
University, N. Kenmore Ave, SAC , Chicago, IL ,
USA (e-mail: mbayat@depaul.edu).
Journal of Intellectual Disability Research doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2788.2007.00960.x
pp –
702
© The Author. Journal Compilation © Blackwell Publishing Ltd