On mindfulness and autism

The overall aim of this thesis was to evaluate the effects of a mindfulness training for children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and a parallel Mindful Parenting training. Findings of the RCT (n = 158 students) showed that a very brief mindfulness exercise may be insufficient for raising empathy. Results from the repeated measures study (n = 74 parents and 45 children with ASD) showed that children’s social responsiveness, emotional and behavioral functioning improved, but their mindful awareness did not change. Parents themselves showed decreased over-reactive parenting, stress, internalizing, externalizing, and attention problems, and increased competence and mindfulness in parenting, and self-compassion. The majority of improvements remained up to 1 year later. Neurocognitive tests showed that children with ASD (n = 49) did not differ from typically developing children (n = 51) in their attention speed, but they were somewhat less accurate in their orienting and executive attention. In addition, small effects of the mindfulness program were found on executive and orienting attention. From grounded-theory based interviews with children (n = 14) and parents (n = 31) eight change processes emerged: connecting with peers, pausing, being aware, here and now, letting be, determining strategy, being and responding calm, and attuning to others. In the single-case studies using a multiple baseline design, it was found that most of the adolescents with ASD (n = 5) and a comorbid internalizing disorder partially benefitted from the mindfulness program. Overall, the findings of this thesis suggest that although the evidence stands in an initial stage, cultivating mindfulness could support families to cope with ASD and its associated difficulties.