Abstract
Having a baby is a huge responsibility. It often happens that mothers, especially when they are having their first baby, feel stressed and incompetent in their role as mothers even as their children normally grows. The purpose of this article is to identify the general features of psychological stress among mothers of autism spectrum disorder and Down syndrome and to identify the differences and relationship in psychological stress between mothers of autism and down syndrome. In this study participated a group of mothers with children who have autism (n = 44) and mothers of children with Down syndrome (n = 44). The findings made proved that the general features of psychological stress are high Among mothers of autistic children, while it was low among mothers of Down syndrome, there were also statistically significant differences in the level of psychological stress between mothers of autism and Down syndrome, and a correlation was found between mothers of autism and Down syndrome at the level of significance (0.01).
Highlights
1 Gray, (1987) defines "stress is a special psychological condition, an emotion which is associated with anxiety, difficulty in concentration and attention, behavior exterior change, tightening of teeth and hands, breathing hard, the gap in the stomach, dry mouth, increased heart rate, sleep disorder, and many others"
3.7 Psychometric properties of the scale: The Department of Psychological Stress evaluated the standard characteristics of this scale on heterogeneous samples of mothers of patients with autism and Down syndrome on the Psychological Stress Scale No Matters and the results showed that the scale is characterized by very high psychometric properties
It is noted from Table No (6), which shows the t-test for two independent samples to find out the differences between mothers of children with autism disorder and mothers of children with Down syndrome on the psychological stress scale, and that the average of mothers of children with autism disorder is (82.77) and the average of mothers of children with the syndrome is (77.98). (82.77) standard deviation (14.65) degree of freedom (86) value (T) (22.26) in comparison between the two averages, the significance level is (0.01), which means that there are differences between mothers of children with autism disorder and mothers of children with Down syndrome on the psychological stress scale
Summary
By comparing parents of children with autism with parents of children with typical development and parents of children with other developmental problems, parents of children with autism have higher levels of stress, anxiety, depression, lower level of interaction in the family, and complains more about health status and consumption. This is reflected in difficulty communicating, behavior in social isolation, and taking care of themselves (Schieve, 2015). In the face of these situations, his psychological and self-compatibility is disturbed, and the deduction of the research problem, which represents the psychological pressures of mothers of autism and Down syndrome
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