Parental Resolution of Children’s Neurodevelopmental Disorders Among Asylum Seekers: Associations with Trauma, Stress, and Protective Factors

Receiving a diagnosis of a neurodevelopmental condition for one’s child often marks a period of emotional adjustment for parents. Parents’ resolution with respect to their child’s diagnosis is associated with the quality of the parent–child relationship and the well-being of both children and parents. Yet, little is known about factors that may shape parental resolution, and in particular, the roles of parents’ exposure to trauma, stress, and available protective factors. To address these gaps, we focused on parents who were asylum seekers from Eritrea and South Sudan in Israel. We examined whether past trauma, post-traumatic stress symptoms, migration stress, and fewer protective factors were associated with parents’ lower levels of resolution of their children’s diagnosis. Fifty-one asylum seekers (50.98% mothers, 49.02% fathers, 88.2% from Eritrea) whose children were diagnosed with autism (52.94%) or intellectual disability reported on their resolution, past traumatic events, post-traumatic stress symptoms, current migration stress levels, and available protective factors. Controlling for the type of child diagnosis and time since receiving it, greater exposure to past trauma, more post-traumatic stress symptoms, and higher migration stress, but not protective factors, were each associated with lower levels of parental resolution. The study highlights the role of trauma and migration stress in parenting children with neurodevelopmental disorders, and suggests that practice with parents who are asylum seekers should target both parents’ challenges stemming from parenting children with special needs and those related to past trauma and migration stress.