Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology Copyright 1983 by the

1983, Vol. 51, No. 5, 683-692 American Psychological Association, Inc.

The Personality and Family-Interaction Characteristics

of Parents of Autistic Children
Robert L. Koegel Laura Schreibman
University of California, Santa Barbara Claremont McKenna College
Robert E. O'Nefll, and John C. Burke
University of California,,Santa Barbara
The purpose of the present investigation was twofold: first, to extend research
assessing the personality and family-interaction characteristics of parents of autistic
children, using a battery of standardized empirical tests, and to compare the results
with established normative data; and second, to investigate the possible occurrence
of a higher level of general parental stress in reaction to their autistic child's ab-
normality. The results showed the following: (a) Parents of autistic children tended
to score in the normal range on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory
and did not differ from a comparison group of families with only normal children;
(b) the "autism" parents exhibited the same level of marital happiness as a normative
group of happily married couples and showed considerably better marital adjustment
than a normative group of divorced couples; (c) the "autism" parents did not differ
by more than one standard deviation from normal families when assessing inter-
personal relationships among family members; (d) biological and stepparents of
autistic children showed essentially identical results on all of the measures used;
and (e) no higher level of general stress occurred for parents of autistic children
as compared to established normative data, although the periodic occurrence of
situation-specific stresses remains plausible. These results are all counter to the
concept of any general psychological characteristics for parents of autistic children
with respect to either a parental cause of the disorder or with respect to a general
stress reaction to the disorder.

One of the most hotly contested and emo- man & Koegel, 1975; Wing, 1966). Even with
tionally laden issues in the area of autism in the initiation of empirical research, which
the last few decades has been the concept of consistently showed no direct support for the
a parental causation of the disorder. Whereas parental-causation hypothesis (e.g., Byassee &
some authors have argued in support of this Murrell, 1975; Creak & Ini, 1960; Kolvin,
hypothesis (e.g., Bettelheim, 1967; Meyers & Ounsted, Richardson, & Garside, 1971; Pit-
Goldfarb, 1961; Putnam, 1955; Rank, 1949, field & Oppenheim, 1964; McAdoo & DeMyer,
1955; Ruttenberg, 1971) numerous other au- 1978; Rutter, 1971; and Schopler & Loftin,
thors have argued strongly against the notion 1969), the idea of autistic children's parents
of a parental causation of autism (Cantwell, exhibiting pathological behavior continued to
Baker, & Rutter, 1978, 1979; DeMyer, 1979; linger on.
Egel, Koegel, & Schreibman, 1980; Schreib- Since infantile autism was first described as
a syndrome by Leo Kanner (1943), a number
; of theories have been proposed to explain the
This research was supported by U.S. Public Health Ser- etiology of the disorder. Kanner, basing his
vice. Research Grants MH28231 and MH282IO from the inferences on clinicai interviews, initially pos-
^^1^i£S£Z^£S£ tulated that the children suffered from innate
Contract 300-82-0362, inabilities, which might have been made worse
The authors are grateful to Ray E. Hosford, Scott Moss, by their parents, who were described as cold,
Andrew Egel, and Jack Mills for their assistance in earlier intelligent, detached, and emotionally unre-
portions of this study. snonsive (Desnert 1951- Eisenberc 19561
Requests for reprints should be sent to Robert L. Koegel, ^ ,^, P:«V, ^V Elsen°erS. V^0'
Social Process Research Institute, University of California, Kanner, 1943, 1949). These characteristics
Santa Barbara, California 93106. were attributed to both mothers and fathers
683
684 KOEGEL, SCHREIBMAN, O'NEILL, AND BURKE
(Eisenberg, 1957). Most professionals in the
1940s and 1950s focused on the parental per-
sonality factor of Kanner's hypothesis and, us-
ing subjective clinical measures, reported more
general psychopathology in parents of autistic
children versus control parents (e.g., Block,
1969; Esman, Kohn, & Nyman, 1959).
The most elaborate theory of direct parental
causation was developed by Bettelheim (1967).
Basing his ideas heavily on subjective impres-
sions, he placed emphasis on a hypothesized
abnormal mother-child bond. The mothers of
autistic children supposedly were inadequate
in displaying care and responsiveness, which
resulted in rage, hostility, and autistic with-
drawal by the child. The child's abnormal be-
haviors (e.g., self-stimulation, echolalia) were
seen as a defensive reaction to a hostile en-
vironment (Bettelheim, 1967).
Psychogenic theories such as Bettelheim's
have been based primarily on subjective data
and theory and suffer from a lack of empirical
substantiation. Empirical research using a va-
riety of nonstandardized measures has pro-
duced no evidence that autistic children have
been subjected to rejection by cold, hostile
parents (Allen, DeMyer, Norton, Pontius &
Yang, 1971; Cox, Rutter, Newman, & Bartak,
1975; Creak & Ini, 1960; Klebanoff, 1959;
Kolvinetal., 197 l;McAdoo& DeMyer, 1978;
Pitfield & Oppenheim, 1964; Rutter, 1971),
or that parents of autistic children differ from
parents of normal children (Byassee & Mur-
rell, 1975; Schopler & Loftin, 1969). Certain
investigators (e.g., McAdoo & DeMyer, 1978;
Wolff & Morris, 1971) have also conducted
some initial research using a standardized em-
pirical measure (the Minnesota Multiphasic
Personality Inventory, MMPI), and their re-
sults also showed that there was no evidence
of greater pathology in parents of autistic chil-
dren. For example, McAdoo and DeMyer
(1978) conducted a comparison of MMPI
profiles of parents of autistic children and par-
ents of children with other types of disorders
(e.g., mental retardation, specific learning dis-
abilities, neurological disorders). The overall
results of their research showed that these
groups of parents did not differ from each
other, and each presented profiles showing no
psychopathology.
Although the central conclusion of the var-
ious studies reported above could be stated as
there being no statistical differences between
parents of autistic children and their "normal
counterparts," there seems to be a tendency
for some authors to also mention that the di-
rection of the results was consistent with the
parental stress-reaction hypothesis (e.g.,
McAdoo & DeMyer, 1978; Wolff & Morris,
1971). This hypothesis states that parents with
autistic children are in a general state of psy-
chological stress because of having a handi-
capped child and that this stress would be re-
flected in their personality. However, instead
of interpreting these trends as support for the
stress-reaction hypothesis, it may be important
to acknowledge that they were (a) not statis-
tically significant and (b) primarily based upon
one measure (the MMPI).
In light of the importance of thoroughly
investigating the possibility that parents of au-
tistic and other disordered children may exhibit
more pathological behavior and/or a higher
level of general stress, researchers such as Haf-
ner, Butcher, Hall, & Quast (1969) have argued
in favor of using multiple measures (as opposed
to the MMPI only) of family adjustment. The
purpose of the present study was to use a bat-
tery of standardized tests to (a) measure var-
ious key characteristics of families with an
autistic child and to compare these results with
established normative data and (b) investigate
the possible occurrence of a higher level of
general stress for parents of autistic children
across numerous aspects of family functioning.
Specifically, the tests employed were the MMPI
for personality assessment, the Spanier Dyadic
Adjustment Scale for the assessment of marital
adjustment, and the Moos Family Environ-
ment Scale for the assessment of the dimen-
sions of interpersonal relationships within a
family.
Method
Subjects
Forty-nine parents of autistic children participated in
this research. They represented 26 families with autistic
children from the pool of children referred (by schools,
development centers, and regional agencies serving the de-
velopmentally disabled) to our research projects during a
24-month period between 1977 and 1979. All of the fam-
ilies referred who had children with a reliable diagnosis
of autism were included in this investigation. All diagnoses
were made by two independent outside agencies, using the
United States National Society for Autistic Children criteria
 PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN
for the diagnosis of autism (Ritvo & Freeman, 1978).
These criteria parallel those listed in the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; Amer-
ican Psychiatric Association, 1980). The children were all
accepted for subsequent (after completion of this exper-
iment) treatment in the experimental autism clinics at
either the University of California, Santa Barbara,' or
Claremont McKenna College.
The children ranged in age from 2.1 years to 9.75 years
(M - 5.75 years). They represented a broad range in terms
of the severity of their handicaps. Social age scores on the
Vineland Social Maturity Scale ranged from .9 years to
5.8 years (M = 2.7 years). The children all had severe
language handicaps, were either nonverbal or echolalic,
and displayed minimal appropriate social and self-help
behaviors. Most of the children were excessively tantru-
mous and exhibited frequent self-stimulatory behaviors
(e.g., body rocking, hand, finger, and arm flapping).
The demographic characteristics of the parents in this
study were similar, to those of autistic parents described
in the literature in general. An assessment of the educational
level of the parents indicated that only 4% of the mothers
and only 4% of the fathers had less than a high school
education; 73% of the mothers and 40% of the fathers had
graduated only from high school; and 23% of the mothers
and 56% of the fathers were college graduates. Looking
at marital status, 78% of the parents were married; only
6% were divorced or separated; 16% were stepparents; and
8% were original parents remarried. The fathers were in-
volved in a broad range of careers, such as management,
sales, carpentry, and the sciences. A few mothers worked
outside the home, but most were full-time homemakers.
Most of the families were at or above the national median
income for their family size according to government sta-
tistics (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1980).
Forty-one of the 49 parents were the original biological
parents of their children and the remaining 8 were step-
parents. These nonbiological parents served as a small
natural control group. Since the parental-causation theory
proposes an early onset, one would expect the original
biological parents to be pathological and the prime cause
of the disorder. Therefore, from the perspective of the
parental-causation hypothesis, the results for the two
subgroups would be expected to be quite different. On the
other hand, from the perspective of a nonparental-causation
hypothesis, one would expect minimal differences between
the biological and nonbiological parents. These group
comparisons will be discussed in the Results section.
Description of Measures
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. The pa-
rental-causation hypothesis suggests that severe disturbance
in parental personality characteristics would be necessary
for the parents to have caused a disorder as profound as
autism so early in life (Rutter, 1978). To measure the
personality characteristics of our parents we used the
MMPI (booklet form). It was chosen because the MMPI
is one of the most widely used and empirically investigated
measures of psychological adjustment currently available.
The MMPI response sheets were numerically coded and
scored for the three validity scales (L, F, K), the eight
major clinical scales and the Masculinity-Femininity and
Social Introversion interest scales by National Computer
685
Systems (Minnesota), a widely used computer scoring
company. In addition to a general analysis, the MMPI
(and other measures listed below) also offered a number
of opportunities for subitem analyses that relate directly
to the parental-causation hypothesis (see Results section,
below).
Dyadic Adjustment Scale. In order to assess whether
or not there was a general strain in the marital relationship,
the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) was employed
to measure each partner's happiness and satisfaction within
the marital relationship. It was chosen because it is based
on an empirical composite of the most widely used mea-
sures of marital adjustment (e.g., Burgess & Cottrell, 1939;
Locke & Wallace, 1959; Nye & McDougall, 1959; Orden
& Bradburn, 1968. For a list of the test item-selection
procedures, see Spanier, 1976). The measure has been
shown to have good validity and high scale reliability. It
is very brief and can be administered in a minimum
amount of time (Spanier, 1976).
Family Environment Scale (FES). The FES (Moos,
Insel, & Humphrey, 1974) was administered to obtain an
indication of the atmosphere of the general family system.
True and false items, such as "Family members really help
and support one another," and "We fight a lot in our
family," attempt to address numerous specific aspects of
the family atmosphere, including the amount of cohesion,
conflict, and so forth. The 10 subscales include Cohesion,
Expressiveness, Conflict, Independence, Achievement
Orientation, Intellectual-Cultural Orientation, Active
Recreational Orientation, Moral-Religious Emphasis, Or-
ganization, and Control. The FES focuses on the mea-
surement and description of the interpersonal relationships
among family members, on the directions of personal
growth that are emphasized in the family, and on the basic
organizational structure of the family. The long form (Form
R, 90 questions) of the FES was used, and scores were
obtained for all 10 FES subscales. In addition, from the
FES subscale raw scores we calculated a family incongru-
ence score for each family, providing information on the
extent of agreement or disagreement between the parents
on various characteristics of the family's social milieu.
The family incongruence score for each family represents
the sum of the differences between the parents' scores
across the 10 subscales.
Procedure
All of the 49 parents completed the MMPI and the
FES. Twenty-two of the 26 families contained a married
couple, and these couples completed the Dyadic Adjust-
ment Scale. The three tests were individually administered
to the parents under standard conditions, as prescribed
by the test authors, to control for experimenter bias and
possible demand characteristics.
Results
MMPI Results
The MMPI data (K corrections added) for
the parents who participated in the present
study (autism group) and the data from a
comparison group are shown in Figure 1. The
686 KOEGEL, SCHREIBMAN, O'NEILL, AND BURKE

MOTHERS
80
70

60
50
40

30

20
F K Hs D Hy Pd Mf Pa Pt Sc Ma Si
Autism Group—
Normal Comparison
FATHERS
80
70
60 s* . , -f
_-^ >*vx
• , ~ -^^ XX -
*s ^*^ sj--^_^^S^
50 r^ ^ ^^ ^
V^
40

30

on \ \ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

L F K Hs D Hy Pd Mf Pa Pt Sc Ma Si
1. Results of a comparison between the autism parents and Miller and Keirn's (1978) normal
comparison group on the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory. (Abbreviations are as follows: Hy-
pochondriasis, Depression, Hysteria, Psychopathic Deviate, Masculinity-Femininity, Paranoia, Psychasthenia,
Schizophrenia, Hypomania, and Social Introversion.)

normal comparison-group data were taken
from Miller and Keirn (1978). This group was
chosen from the literature for the following
reasons: (a) The sample was drawn from the
southern California region, as was ours; (b)
the children in the comparison-group families
were in a similar age range (M = 6.9 years)
to the children in the present study (M - 5.8
years); (c) the normal comparison children in
Miller and Keirn's families had a similar
number of siblings (M = 1.8), as did the autistic
children in our sample (M = 1.6); (d) both
the normal comparison sample and our fam-
ilies were generally in the middle to upper
middle socioeconomic status range; and (e)
the parents in both samples were nearly equal
in their number of years of education (normal
fathers, M= 15.9; "autism" fathers, M= 16.4;
normal mothers, M = 14.5; "autism" mothers,
M = 13.6).
As can be seen, Figure 1 shows that the
MMPI data for both the mothers and fathers
in the two groups (autism and normal com-
parison) were almost identical and were well
within the normal range (30 to 70). Data for
the biological and nonbiological autism par-
ents are essentially the same, with the biolog-
ical group actually being more similar (al-
though not significantly so) to the normative
comparison group.
Marital Adjustment
The Dyadic Adjustment Scale and the fam-
ily incongruence score of the FES were used
as indicators of the extent of satisfactory mar-
 PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN 687

140r autism group were significantly different from

130
the normative group scores. As with the other
measures, the results for the biological
120
subgroup of autism parents were almost iden-
110 tical to the normative group and were not sig-
nificantly different from the nonbiological
100-
subgroup of autism parents.
90

80
Additional Item Analyses
70
One might also ask questions concerning a
hypothesis that the parents might be cold and
60
Normative Autism rejecting even though they are not psychotic.
Group
ffiffi The 'data from several of the subscales of the
Group
tests employed relate to this point and suggest
Figure 2. Dyadic Adjustment Scale results (a comparison that the parents are not cold and rejecting.
' between the autism group and Spanier's, 1976, normative
groups).
For example, the parents responded to items
on the MMPI Warmth scale (Finney, 1965)
in a direction that has been shown to indicate
warmth in personality style. Also, most parents
ital adjustment. Figure 2 contains the data for in this study answered the FES Cohesion sub-
the autism parents, as well as Spanier's (1976) scale questions (e.g., Family members really
data for married and divorced normative help and support one another—true) in a di-
groups. The autism parents are clearly very, rection to show high family cohesion. Simi-
similar to the normative married group (au- larly, their responses on the FES Conflict sub-
tism parents, M = 119.7; normative married scale (e.g., Family members often criticize each
group, M = 114.8) and are well above the other—false) indicated a low level of conflict.
normative divorced group (M = 70.7). A sim- A cold personality style also seems inconsistent
ilar result is seen in Figure 3, with the autism
group and normal comparison group scoring
very alike on the family incongruence score 50r
obtained from the FES, indicating similar and
minimal extents of disagreement (autism
group parents M = 14.00; FES normative
40
group, M = 16.74). As with the MMPI, the
results for the two autism subgroups (biological
and nonbiological) on the marital-adjustment
measures were essentially the same. 30

Family Environment Scale

20
The data for the FES subscales for both the I
autism group and the FES normative families
(Moos et al., 1974) are presented in Figure 4. H
Means and standard deviations are shown for • 10
each group on the ordinate; subscales are
shown on the abscissa. As with the previous
data, results for the autism parents are almost 0 -
identical to the scores of the normative group, Autism FES
Normative
Group
with only one of the 10 scales for the autism Qroup
group being even as far as one standard de- Figure 3. Family Incongruence score results (means and
viation away from the normative scale scores. standard deviations for the autism group and FES nor-
None of the scores on the 10 scales for the mative group).
688 KOEGEL, SCHREIBMAN, O'NEILL, AND BURKE
9- —
8—
o —
7— 0 "
4 1
6- """*
<»
5-
11
4-
O __
(,_
2—
1— —
0
I I
13
Figure 4. FES subscale results (means and standard deviations for the autism group and FES normative
group).
with the high degree of positive answers the
parents provided on the Spanier Dyadic Ad-
justment Scale items dealing with demonstra-
tion of affection, low amount of fighting, and
above-average happiness with the marital re-
lationship. Taken together, the data from all
of these relevant subscales are inconsistent with
the idea of a cold, hostile, and rejecting per-
sonality style. This finding is also consistent
with that of Cox et al. (1975), who found no
difference between parents of autistic children
versus parents of dysphasic children in terms
of parental warmth.
Discussion
Although there has been considerable re-
search on family variables as possible causative
agents relating to other types of psychological
disorders (cf. Bateson, Jackson, Haley, &
Weakland, 1956; Garmezy, 1974; Goldstein
& Rodnick, 1975; Singer & Wynne, 1965;
Watzlawick, Beavin, & Jackson, 1967), there
has not been a great deal of empirical and
systematic research on this topic in the area
of autism. The present study compared data
obtained from parents of autistic children with
normative data on a battery of standardized
r
•—
1-
<1
— 1 •
r
1
O
(1
(
' T' I 1
1 1
O
o 1
1
o T'| i i
o 11 < i
1 1 j_ 0
- J_
— —
1 1
empirical testing instruments, including the
MMPI, the Dyadic Adjustment Scale, and the
FES. Overall, the results suggest that parents
of autistic children are very similar to parents
in general in their personality characteristics,
marital adjustment, and family interactions.
The main results from this study are con-
sistent with other initial studies using empirical
(although not standardized) measures (e.g.,
Creak & Ini, 1960; Kolvin et al., 1971; Pitfield
&Oppenheim, 1964;Schopler&Loftin, 1969;
Rutter, 1971). Similarly, McAdoo and DeMyer
(1978), who employed the MMPI, formed
conclusions highly consistent with our own
(i.e., that parents of autistic children are not
abnormal).
Although the results of the present inves-
tigation provide considerable evidence against
the notion of parental psychopathology, one
additional question might be raised concerning
the possibility that the parents may have ex-
hibited psychopathology when their children
were infants and then subsequently became
normal. It seemed highly unlikely that this
could have happened; nevertheless, we ex-
amined our data for any possible trends across
the parents that might correlate with the ages
of their autistic children at the time of the
 PARENTS OF AUTISTIC CHILDREN 689

present study. The fact that we found no sys- other attempt to investigate how and to what
tematic differences across age of the child lends degree the autistic child's symptoms affect the
support to the idea that the parents were not family, DeMyer (1979) employed a parental-
previously pathological. report questionnaire measure. DeMyer found
We also conducted some additional analyses that although parents reported great upheavals
aimed at assessing whether there were any re- in the lives of their families, when asked a
lationships between parent MMPI results and direct question concerning the child's effect
the children's IQ or verbal characteristics. on the family they usually indicated a "mea-
These analyses found no identifiable relation- ger" effect or a "denial of any serious effect."
ships between either the children's IQ level She concluded that the parents in her study
and their parents' MMPI results or between had not "pulled together their thoughts" con-
their verbal level and the parents' MMPI re- cerning how the autistic child affected them.
sults. (It may, however, be important to note Rather than conceptualizing these types of
that there were relatively few children in our nonsignificant trends as being a possible sup-
sample who had functional speech at the time port for the occurrence of a higher level of
of the pretreatment assessments, because general stress, one could alternatively place
functional speech typically precludes a diag- emphasis on the fact that to date no investi-
nosis of autism.) gations have reported statistically significant
evidence of a general level of parental stress.
However, several investigations have sug-
Parental Stress-Reaction Hypothesis gested that there is a likelihood of situation-
specific stress. For example, Schopler and Lof-
By closely analyzing the data obtained from tin (1969) investigated the possibility that
the battery of standardized tests presently em- thought disorders in parents of psychotic chil-
ployed one can observe that there was, no sta- dren may be a function of test anxiety. Using
tistical support (or even marginally significant the Object Sorting Test (OST), they found that
trends) for the parental stress-reaction hy- when parents were tested in the same clinic
pothesis. In addition, the present data show in which they were involved in conjoint psy-
no one single global area (marital happiness, chotherapy with their "psychotic" child, they
parents' personality characteristics, or familial scored significantly higher than control parents
social system) as being more affected by the of normal children. Instead of interpreting
presence of the autistic child in the family. their results as evidence for a formal thought
This lack of significant differences is consistent disorder, they hypothesized that the parents'
with previous investigations (e.g., McAdoo & impaired thinking was a function of test anx-
DeMyer, 1978) that employed only one mea- iety. They tested this hypothesis by interview-
sure (MMPI). One difference between our re- ing a second group of parents (who had a psy-
sults and those of McAdoo & DeMyer is that chotic child) in regard to their normal child
they found slightly elevated MMPI profiles for before being tested, giving the parents a test-
the parents they studied. Although the ele- taking set toward successful child rearing.
vations were not significant, they hypothesized Their data showed that the mothers in this
that they may nevertheless have related to the group demonstrated less impairment than the
stress incurred by having an abnormal child mothers in the group tested in the setting as-
in the family. sociated with their "psychotic" child. Fur-
If a higher level of stress existed for parents thermore, the parents in the second group
due to a reaction to their disabled child, it failed to score significantly differently from
seems highly likely that the level of stress the normal control group. Similarly, numerous
should vary according to the degree of severity parents involved in our own research programs
of the child's disorder. Previous research in have anecdotally reported feeling more stress
this area, however, has produced inconsistent when placed in certain types of situations
results (e.g., Cox et al., 1975; Holroyd, Brown, (shopping with a tantrumous child, taking their
Wilder, & Simmons, 1975; McAdoo and child to a hospital to be diagnosed, etc.). In
DeMyer, 1978; Wolff & Morris, 1971). In an- contrast, parents report feeling less stress in
690 KOEGEL, SCHREIBMAN, O'NEILL, AND BURKE
other kinds of situations. For example, Lapin
and Lapin (1976) discuss the importance of
finding a professional who will provide long-
term intensive treatment. It may be notable
that (as described above in the Subjects sec-
tion), the children of the parents in the present
study had just been accepted for subsequent
participation in a long-term intensive treat-
ment program. Therefore, at the time of the
present experiment, it is possible that the par-
ents in the present study may have felt less
stress. Similarly, one could speculate that the
growing availability of such programs may be
contributing to a generally lower level of stress
in families with autistic children.
Conclusions and Implications
Overall, the results of this study suggest that
the cause of the children's disorder is probably
unrelated to the psychological characteristics
of their parents. This finding has several im-
plications. First, it suggests that perhaps less
effort should be devoted to parental-causation
hypotheses of the etiology of autism, with rel-
atively more emphasis given to research into
other hypotheses concerning the etiology. For
example, numerous researchers have hypoth-
esized possible neurophysiological and bio-
chemical bases for the disorder (e.g., Black-
stock, 1978; Coleman, 1979; Damasio &
Maurer, 1978; Hauser, DeLong, & Rosman,
1975; Hier, LeMay, & Rosenberger, 1979; Or-
nitz, 1978; Ornitz & Ritvo, 1976; Ritvo, Ra-
bin, Yuwiler, Freeman, & Geller, 1978; Rutter
& Bartak, 1971; Schopler & Reichler, 1971;
Student & Sohmer, 1978; Tanguay, 1976;
Wetherby, Koegel, & Mendel, 1981).
A second implication of the present findings
is that by placing a high value on nonsignificant
trends, many previous investigators may have
been somewhat misled to "feel" that there may
exist a higher level of general parental stress.
In opposition to this notion, the present in-
vestigation, along with others (e.g., Schopler
& Loftin, 1969), strongly suggests that a general
overall stress reaction may not exist and that
it may be more plausible to view parental stress
as being highly situational, as a result of specific
anxiety-producing situations. Along these
lines, it might be advisable for future research
to include both behavioral and standardized
paper-and-pencil measures (cf. Farina &
Holzberg, 1967).
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Received January 31, 1983

Kazdin Appointed Editor, 1985-1990

The Publications and Communications Board of the American Psychological Asso-

ciation announces the appointment of Alan E. Kazdin, Western Psychiatric Institute
and Clinic, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, as Editor of the Journal of
Consulting and Clinical Psychology for a 6-year term beginning in 1985. As of January
1, 1984, manuscripts should be directed to:
Alan E. Kazdin
Western Psychiatric Institute and (Clinic
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
3811 O'Hara Street
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Manuscript submission patterns for the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology
make the precise date of completion of the 1984 volume uncertain. Therefore, authors
should note that although the current editor, Sol L. Garfield, will receive and consider
manuscripts until December 31, 1983, should the 1984 volume be completed before
that date, Garfield will redirect manuscripts to Kazdin for consideration in the 1985
volume.