Contextualizing Resilience: A Theoretical Integration of Social Determinants of Health and Family Functioning in Neurodiverse Families

ABSTRACT Families of children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) often navigate chronic stress, fragmented service systems, and persistent barriers to care. Although Walsh's family resilience framework has served as a foundational framework for understanding how families adapt to adversity, it has traditionally emphasized internal processes without fully accounting for the structural inequities that shape families' capacity to access support. This article proposes the Contextual Family Resilience Framework: An integrated model that combines Walsh's Family Resilience Framework and the Social Determinants of Health (SDOH) framework to comprehensively examine how ASD severity, systemic barriers, and family resilience interact. Situating family resilience as a dynamic, context‐dependent process, the model highlights the critical role of environmental conditions in enabling or constraining resilience mechanisms. Clinical implications and future research directions are explored, emphasizing the need for equity‐informed models and interventions that support both family strengths and the systems within which families function.