Sense of Coherence and Coping Style of Parents with Children having Autism Spectrum Disorder

The present study aims at outlining the relationship between sense of coherence(SOC) and coping styles of parents having children with autism spectrum disorder. The sample consisted of 30 mothers and 30 fathers, of children having autism spectrum disorder(ASD) between the age group of 30-40 years, residing in Jaipur city. Standard psychological tests included orientation to life questionnaire-13 (Antonovsky,1987) and coping response inventory (Moos, 1993). To assess the difference between the means of males and females t-test was applied, while Pearson's correlation was used for the assessment of relationship between the dimensions. It was found that mothers having low SOC used emotion focused coping while fathers with low SOC engaged in problem focused coping. The result also indicated that sense of coherence is positively related to problem focused coping and inversely related to emotion focused coping. Results however revealed no significant difference between the level of sense of coherence of fathers and mothers having children with autism spectrum disorder.