The Divorce Myth

In The Politics of Autism, I discuss the day-to-day challenges facing autistic people and their families.  One challenge consists of myths surrounding autism.

Sara Luterman at The Washington Post:

Why does the narrative that autism destroys marriages persist? Last year, at the Autism at Work conference, an otherwise wonderful gathering of business leaders from across America, autism mom and pseudo-celebrity Holly Peete Robinson gave a presentation trotting out the claim that 80 percent of marriages with an autistic child end in divorce. It felt like being stabbed. At a conference ostensibly for lifting up autistic people and our hidden value, I was confronted with the accusation that my mere existence hurts my parents. That the mere existence of people like me destroys marriages and turns love into ash. After her presentation, I confronted her at the front of the room with the data. Her response? The 80 percent number “felt real.” Feelings aren’t facts. (Robinson’s representatives declined to respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post.)

The Divorce Myth

People such as Jenny McCarthy have spread the myth that parents of autistic children have a high divorce rate. In an editorial, Autism sums up the evidence:

Naseef and Freedman (2012) addressed this issue with sensitivity and clarity in the Autism Advocate. They describe the urban legend that the divorce rate among parents of children with autism is 80%, a statistic earnestly quoted by many talk show hosts and celebrities in the United States. Naseef and Freedman point out that having a child with autism can increase parents’ stress relative to parents of typically developing children, and can strain parents’ relationship with each other. This can be a product of changing expectations regarding the care and development of the child with autism, the child’s difficult-to-manage behavior, juggling often hectic therapy schedules, financial challenges, and battling with schools and insurance companies to obtain appropriate care. In the face of these challenges, and a national divorce rate of 40% to 50%, it’s no wonder that people assume a much higher rate of divorce among parents of children with autism.

Carefully conducted research does not bear out this statistic, however. As early as1951, Kanner remarked on the low incidence of divorce among the families of children with autism he had seen. Freedman and colleagues (2012) used data from a national survey to estimate that 64% of children with autism reside in two-parent households, a percentage no different from that of typically developing children. Because of the way the survey questions were asked, however, they were not able to ascertain the exact divorce rate. Hartley and colleagues (2010) found, in a smaller convenience sample, that 23.5% of parents of children with autism divorced, compared with 13.8% of typically developing children, with the difference between the two groups appearing among parents of children older than 10 years, but not before. Still, the divorce rate among parents of children with autism in this sample was substantially lower than the national average.

Michigan Mandate Passes

The Detroit Free Press reports:

Insurers must provide coverage for therapy for Michigan's autistic children beginning Oct. 1 as part of a package of bills passed Thursday by the Michigan Legislature.

The bills, which are expected to be signed by Gov. Rick Snyder, also create a state fund to reimburse insurers for treatment costs.

"This is a big day," said David Meador, executive vice president and chief financial officer for DTE Energy. His 15-year-old daughter, Maribel, is autistic.
...
Advocates for the insurance mandate had failed in several earlier attempts to win legislative approval, largely because of opposition from business groups opposed to insurance mandates and worried about costs.

But the campaign built significant momentum in the last year with backing from Snyder and Lt. Gov. Brian Calley, who has an autistic daughter. The autism bills were approved Thursday with broad bipartisan support.

They passed with a 91-19 vote in the House and 30-8 in Senate.

The Detroit News reports:

In Michigan, about 15,000 children and teens are diagnosed with autism disorders. Autism is diagnosed by making judgments about a child's behavior; there are no blood or biologic tests. Its cause remains a mystery.Calley said passage of the bills will benefit not only families but the state of Michigan. The state will realize $13 billion to $15 billion in savings over the lifetimes of children who will now be able to receive therapies needed to reach their full potential, he said.

"We know that half of (children with autism) can reach independence, reach typical function," Calley said.

Calley championed the three-bill autism package as the father of a small daughter with autism.

"This will benefit other families much more than mine," Calley said. "I'm in a fortunate position to have resources and connections, to be (among) the 1 or 2 percent of families in Michigan that have access to therapy.

"The vast majority (can't afford treatment) so they get this diagnosis and they don't get the therapy they need. That's why you see divorces and why families with autism are much more likely to be in poverty."

Autism and Divorce

At the Huffington Post, Vicki Larson writes of Jenny McCarthy

Her advocacy and best-selling books, Louder Than Words: A Mother's Journey in Healing Autism and Mother Warriors: A Nation of Parents Healing Autism Against All Odds brought to light the high rate of divorce within the autism community -- as high as 80 percent. Although that number has been disputed, it helped spur the National Autism Association to create a program to help families with autistic children afford marital counseling.

The 80 percent figure is more than "disputed." It is bogus. As earlier posts have explained, parents of ASD kids do not have unusually high divorce rates.

Autism and Divorce

An article in The Huffington Post begins:

The divorce rate of parents with an autistic child is said to be over 80%. If there's any validity to this statistic my guess is, in addition to the stress and financial strain, the legal hoops one must jump through to get ones child basic services with the Board of Education, the Board of Public Transportation, insurance companies, the lawyers, the hearings, the paper work and the sheer bureaucracy of advocating for your child must be a factor. It is the workload equivalent to running a small business if not more. When you add the fact many autistic children have disruptive sleep patterns and eating habits causing further complications to a family already struggling to cope, you have a situation that will test the strength of any marriage, no matter how solid.

This story is one case where the online comments section is actually useful. Three readers have already pointed out that the 80-percent figure is bogus. See an earlier post on a study from the Kennedy Krieger Institute. As another post mentioned, however, parents of adults with autism do seem to have a higher divorce rate.

Divorce, Families, and Older People with ASD

An earlier post dealt with the "divorce myth," the notion that parents of autistic children are more likely than others to break up. Unfortunately, one study suggests, it becomes less of a myth as the children grow up. From the University of Wisconsin:

The parents of grown children with autism are more likely to divorce than couples with typically developing children, according to new data from a large longitudinal study of families of adolescents and adults with autism.

The study, published in the August issue of the Journal of Family Psychology by researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Waisman Center, paints a new picture of the prospects of long-term marital success for parents raising a child with autism.

The study is the first to track marital history of parents of adult children with autism. It reveals that, in contrast to previous assumptions, parents do not have a greater risk of divorce when their son or daughter with autism is young. However, as the child with autism grows into adolescence and adulthood, parents are more likely to divorce than are parents of typically developing children. Although findings reveal diminished prospects for a lasting marriage for parents raising a child with autism, the majority of marriages in this study survived.

The study compared the marital fates of 391 couples — the parents of adolescent and adult children with autism — to a sample drawn from another large longitudinal study, the National Survey of Midlife in the United States (MIDUS). The goal of the study was to document the rate and timing of divorce of parents of children with autism, explains Sigan Hartley, a UW-Madison assistant professor of human development and family studies and lead author of the report.

...

There is a lifelong profile of challenging behaviors and symptoms associated with autism," Hartley notes. "Few developmental disabilities appear to be more taxing on parents and there is a great need for support services for families when the child is an adolescent and adult. Providing support for couples to help them work on their marriages is an obvious step. If we can get information and support to these families, we hope to be able to support lasting marriages."

The new study compares data from two large longitudinal studies, the Adolescents and Adults with Autism Study, directed by Marsha Mailick Seltzer, a UW-Madison professor of social work and director of the Waisman Center, and MIDUS, directed by UW-Madison psychology professor Carol Ryff. Both studies are funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The Divorce Myth

Confirming a finding from the Easter Seals survey, a new study finds that parents of autistic children do not have an unusually high divorce rate. From WebMD:

Parents of autistic children often hear that the divorce rate in families with autism is 80%, but a new study debunks that figure as a myth.

''There really weren't any significant differences in terms of family structure when you consider children with autism and those without," says study researcher Brian Freedman, PhD, clinical director of the Center for Autism and Related Disorders at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore.

''In fact what we found is that children with autism remained with both biological or adoptive parents 64% of the time, compared with children in families without autism, who remained [with both biological or adoptive parents] 65% of the time," Freedman tells WebMD.

''That debunks the myth of an 80% divorce rate," Freedman says. An 80% rate is roughly double the U.S. divorce rate for first marriages.

Freedman is due to present his findings Friday at the International Meeting for Autism Research in Philadelphia.