title: Mothers' expressed emotion towards children with autism spectrum disorder and their siblings.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Expressed emotion (EE) is a construct used to measure the emotional climate within families. EE is of interest to researchers in the field of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) because of its putative implications for child development. The aim was to explore whether maternal EE differs towards a child with ASD and a non-disabled sibling.
  
  
  METHODS
  We adopted a within-family design with 143 mothers of children with ASD and a non-disabled sibling. EE was measured using the Five-Minute Speech Sample.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Wilcoxon signed-rank tests were utilised. Mothers were coded as significantly more critical and less warm towards their child with ASD than towards the sibling. There were no significant differences in maternal emotional overinvolvement or overall EE towards the child with ASD and a sibling.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The data support the results of previous research suggesting that EE is linked to the relationship a mother has with individual children, rather than being evidence of the character disposition of mothers. More research is needed to understand the emotional dimensions of parent-child relationships in families with children with ASD.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Bangor University, Bangor, UK.
authors.forename: G M
authors.initials: GM
authors.lastname: Griffith
authors.forename: R P
authors.initials: RP
authors.lastname: Hastings
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Petalas
authors.forename: T J
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Lloyd
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000067877:Autism Spectrum Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019260:Expressed Emotion; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D035781:Siblings
keywords: ASD; autism; expressed emotion; family; mothers; siblings