Autism 0(0) 1 –11 © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions:

aut.sagepub.com Parents of individuals with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) often report high levels of stress and mental health problems, associated with the challenges of caring for individuals with complex needs and with navigating mul-tiple service sectors across the life course. Parents usually have the major obligation of caring for their child (which includes management of problematic behaviors) and bal-ancing associated stress while overseeing the well-being of the rest of their family (Seltzer et al., 2004). Mothers of children with ASD report greater emotional problems compared to mothers of children with intellectual disa-bility without ASD and mothers of typically developing children (Totsika et al., 2011). Similarly, mothers of ado-lescents and adults with ASD experience higher levels o