J Autism Dev Disord (2013) 43:471–477
DOI 10.1007/s10803-012-1594-9
ORIGINAL PAPER
The Role of Parenting Stress in Discrepancies Between Parent
and Teacher Ratings of Behavior Problems in Young Children
with Autism Spectrum Disorder
Phil Reed • Lisa A. Osborne
Published online: 6 July 2012
Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2012
Abstract The study assessed whether teacher and parent
ratings of child behavior problems were similar for chil-
dren with autism spectrum disorders. Two informants rated
child behaviors in the same home environment, and the
degree to which parenting stress impacted the similarity of
the ratings was assessed. Overall behavior problem ratings
did not differ between groups, but there was poor corre-
spondence between the ratings for individual children,
stress did not impact markedly on the discrepancies. Par-
ent–teacher discrepancies in behavior ratings cannot be
attributed entirely to differences in the assessment–
environment, and there was little evidence of widespread
impacts of parenting stress on these discrepant ratings. It
was suggested that attention is needed in terms of the
teacher characteristics when explaining such results.
Keywords Autism spectrum disorder
Behavior
problems
Informant rating
Discrepancies

Assessment environment
Parent stress
Introduction
Child behavior problems are often a key focus of many
interventions for autism spectrum disorders (ASD), and are
strongly implicated in the prospects for children with ASD
in terms of their education (e.g., Frederickson et al. 2004;
P. Reed (&)
Department of Psychology, Swansea University, Singleton Park,
Swansea SA2 8PP, UK
e-mail: p.reed@swan.ac.uk; p.reed@swansea.ac.uk
L. A. Osborne
Long-Term and Chronic Conditions Centre, Swansea University,
Singleton Park, Swansea SA2 8PP, UK
Reed et al. 2007). Obtaining accurate assessments of
behavior problems such as aggressive externalizing
behaviors is, therefore, a particularly important issue in the
assessment of the effectiveness of the intervention, and in
terms of assessing the progress that a child with ASD is
making. Typically, these ratings are obtained by employing
informant surveys in which various aspects of the child’s
behavior are rated by an individual who knows the child,
such as the child’s parents or the child’s teacher, and there
are a number of such rating scales in common use (e.g.,
Achenbach and Rescorla 2000; Conners 1997; Einfeld and
Tonge 1995; Goodman 1997).
It would be hoped that such informant ratings of
behavior would show some degree of similarity to one
another to establish some levels of reliability in this method
of assessing behaviors (see Kalyva 2010, for a discussion).
However, an issue that has recurrently been noted when
comparing the ratings of behaviors given by informants is
that there is often rather poor agreement between the two
assessments. Clear and often noted examples of such dis-
crepancies involve the ratings given to various skills by
children and their parents, both in the general population
(see De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2006; Grills and Ollendick
2003; Treutler and Ephins 2003), and for children with
ASD (Johnson et al. 2009; Koning and Magill-Evans
2001). An additional set of studies have noted discrepan-
cies between the ratings of parents and teachers. For
example, (Kolko and Kazdin 1993; Koning and Magill-
Evans 2001; Papageorgiou et al. 2008) noted only moder-
ate correlations between the ratings of emotional and
behavioral problems in children with a range of clinical
problems. Similar findings have also been reported by
Verhulst and Akkerhuis (1989) for children drawn from the
general population. These findings are also common in
specific groups of children: Antrop et al. (2002) noted only
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weak correlations between informant ratings in children
with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (Kanne et al.
2009; Koning and Magill-Evans 2001) for children with
ASD. In fact, in a review of the literature, Achenbach et al.
(1987) noted that the average correlation coefficient
obtained between ratings of behavioral and emotional
problems given by parents and teachers was only .28, and
this type of evidence has lead Stanger and Lewis (1993) to
suggest that these ratings are not substitutable for one
another (although this is not always found, see Kalyva
2010).
One factor that may well explain a large amount of the
variance seen between ratings obtained from parents and
teachers is that these assessments are often conducted with
reference to behaviors observed in different contexts (i.e.
the home and the school). Several investigators have sug-
gested that such setting-specific differences in behavior are
associated with the differences in the observed informant
ratings of behavior across children in general (e.g., De Los
Reyes et al. 2009; Rettew et al. 2011), and for those with
ASD, in particular (Kalyva 2010; Kanne et al. 2009;
Koning and Magill-Evans 2001). However, despite the
large literature on this topic, there are surprisingly few
studies that have employed teachers and parents rating
child behaviors observed in the same setting. Although, for
most practical purposes, this lack of evidence is under-
standable, the development of home-teaching programs for
children with ASD (see Lovaas 1987; Reed et al. 2007)
allows an opportunity to have both parents and teachers
rate the behaviors of the children in the same environ-
mental setting. Thus, the first aim of the current study is to
examine whether parents and teachers would show similar
or different assessments of child problems behaviors when
rating the child in the child’s home.
In addition to the potential for different environments to
produce discrepancies in informant ratings, there are sev-
eral other factors that could play a role in the development
of such differences. For example, the heterogeneity of the
clinical characteristics of the sample is one such potential
factor (Verhulst and Akkerhuis 1989), although this would
be minimized, to some extent, by using a population who
were all diagnosed with ASD. However, it has also been
noted that characteristics of the parents may also be asso-
ciated with discrepancies in the ratings given of problem
behaviors. Youngstrom et al. (2000; see also Boyle and
Pickles 1997; De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2006; Richters
1992; Treutler and Ephins 2003), noted that parent
depression and stress were correlated with disagreements in
the ratings of internalizing and externalizing behavior
problems compared to teachers; that is, highly stressed
parents tended to rate behaviors differently to the teachers
to a greater extent than less stressed parents. Kolko and
Kazdin (1993; see also De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2006)
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J Autism Dev Disord (2013) 43:471–477
found that the correlations between these informant ratings
of emotional and behavior problems were stronger when
the parents were low stressed. This may be an important
variable in the context of ASD, as parents of children with
ASD display very high levels of parenting stress (see
Osborne and Reed 2009, for a review). Such parenting
stress has been linked with differences in the way in which
parents perceive behaviors in their children with ASD. For
example, Fong (1991) noted that higher stressed parents of
children with ASD rated behaviors seen in a video of a
child as more threatening than lower-stressed parents of
children with ASD. Thus, a second aim of the current study
is to explore whether there are any differences in the degree
of similarity of teacher and parent assessments of child
behavior problems depending on whether the parents report
lower or higher levels of parenting stress.
In summary, assessment of child behavior problems is
important for most clinical purposes, and is often accom-
plished through either parent or teacher ratings of those
behaviors (Grills and Ollendick 2003; Kalyva 2010).
However, such ratings have been found to be discrepant,
and both the environment and parental stress have been
identified as factors that may influence this discrepancy
(De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2006; Treutler and Ephins
2003). To explore these factors further, the current study
attempted to have the two types of informant (parent and
teacher) rate the behaviors of the child in the same envi-
ronment (the home), and also attempted to assess the
degree to which parenting stress, known to be high in
parents of children with ASD, impacted on these findings.
Method
Participants
Fifty-two children with ASD were employed (46 boys and
6 girls), all of the parents of these children had given their
consent for their and their children’s participation in this
study. The group were all diagnosed as having either
childhood autism (41) or PDD:NOS (11) by pediatricians
who were independent from the study. The diagnosis was
made using a combination of DSM-IV criteria for these
disorders and clinical judgment. All of the children were
undergoing a home-based applied behavior analytic inter-
vention program, and were recruited from varied locations
across the UK. The children had a mean age of 44.4 (?7.9;
range 36–77) months.
To gauge the approximate severity of the ASD in the
sample, the Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS) was
employed. The GARS measure showed that the mean (SD)
of the overall GARS score for this sample was 92.6
(±17.9), indicating that this sample had an ‘average’
J Autism Dev Disord (2013) 43:471–477
probability of having autism (the GARS has a standardized
mean for all children with ASD of 100 ± 15 implying
‘averagely autistic’; higher scores implying greater severity
of problems, and lower scores implying milder severity of
difficulties). The mental age of group with ASD was
assessed by use of the psych-educational profile (PEP-R).
Their mean IQ estimated by the PEP-R was 52.9 (±17.1,
range 11–97).
Materials
The Gilliam Autism Rating Scale (GARS; Gilliam 1995)
comprises four sub-scales, each describing behaviors that
are symptomatic of ASD (stereotyped behaviors, commu-
nication difficulties, social interaction, and developmental
disturbances). The raw scores from these sub-scales can be
converted into standard scores (mean = 10, SD = 3).
These sub-scales combine to give an overall Autism quo-
tient; higher scores meaning greater autistic severity
(mean = 100 [average autistic severity], SD = 15). In
terms of assessing the probability that an individual has
ASD, an autism quotient score of between 90 and 110
means an ‘average’ probability of ASD, a score below 89
means that there is a ‘below average’ probability of ASD,
and a score below 79 means that there is a ‘low’ probability
that the individual has ASD (Gilliam 1995). The scale is
appropriate for persons aged 3–22 years old, and is com-
pleted by parents or professionals in about 10 min. Its
internal reliability is .96, and it has high criterion validity
with the autism behavior checklist (.94). While not a strong
diagnostic tool, this measure can an estimate of the relative
severity of the disorder (see Reed et al. 2010).
Psycho-Educational Profile (Revised) (PEP-R; Schopler
et al. 1990) is a developmental test designed for assessing
both the typical strengths and characteristic weaknesses of
children with autism. The test measures functioning in
seven developmental domains: imitation, perception, fine
and gross motor skills, eye-hand coordination, and non-
verbal and verbal conceptual ability. The mental age
required to perform the tests ranges from 1 to 72 months.
The test also gives an overall developmental functioning
score that can be converted into an overall score (e.g.,
[mental age/chronological age] 9 100). The internal reli-
ability of the PEP-R for autistic children ranges from .85
(perception) to .98 (cognitive verbal performance), and it
has high criterion validity with some other tests for intel-
ligence, such as the Merrill Palmer Scale of mental tests
(.85).
Conners’ Rating Scale (CRS-R; Conners 1997) assesses
children (aged 3–17) for behavioral problems, hyperactiv-
ity and attention-deficit disorder. The short version of the
form was used, which takes 5–10 min to complete. The
473
short version of the CRS-R comprises 28 items for the
teacher, which comprise a 0 (not true at all) to 4 (very
much true) Likert-type scale. There are four subscales of
the test. Oppositional behavior indicative of rule breaking,
authority problems, and ease of anger. Cognitive Problems
indexing inattention, difficulty in organizing work, or
concentrating for sustained periods. Hyperactivity sug-
gesting difficulties in sitting still, restlessness, and impul-
sivity. The ADHD index identifies children likely to suffer
from ADHD. The range of internal reliability of the sub-
scales is from .77 to .96.
Questionnaire on Resources and Stress The Friedrich
short-form of the QRS (Friedrich et al. 1983) is a 52-item,
self-administered, true/false tool, designed to measure
parental perceptions of the impact of a developmentally
delayed, or chronically ill, child on other family members.
The QRS-F consists of four sub-scales, which assess
parental perceptions about: parent and family problems
dealing with the impact that the disability has on family
activities or relationships; pessimism related to parent
depression; child characteristics dealing with the impact of
the child’s problems on the family; and physical incapacity
which examines the family problems produced by the child
not being able to perform certain activities for themselves.
These scores summate to produce a total stress score
(0–52). Higher scores are indicative of greater perceived
stress within the family, as perceived and indicated by the
parents (but not, it should be noted, of a greater degree or
number of actual stressors, see Dyson et al. 1989). The
internal reliability of the sub-scales ranges from: .77
(physical incapacity) to .85 (child characteristics), with the
internal reliability of the total stress score being .89. This
tool has previously been employed for samples with ASD
in assessing stress in parents (Hastings and Johnson 2001),
and so allows comparison with previous studies. The total
stress score from this scale has been shown to have good
reliability and validity for research with parents of young
children with ASC (Honey et al. 2005).
Procedure
The children were visited in their homes by an educational
psychologist who completed the PEP-R assessments. In
addition, the educational psychologist helped the parent
(the child’s primary caregiver, in all cases but three, the
mother) to complete the GARS measure. At this time, the
parent was also asked to complete the parent version of
the CRS about their child’s behaviours, and the QRS-F
questionnaire. Additionally, the child’s ABA supervisor
was asked to complete the teachers CRS questionnaire on
the child’s behaviours, independently of the parents. All of
the measures were completed in a single session.
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Results
The mean CRS scores regarding the children obtained from
the parents and teachers are displayed in Table 1. Inspec-
tion of the parents and teacher ratings displayed in Table 1
shows that behaviors in all four dimensions were rated
somewhat higher than the average for these scales (i.e. 50)
by both sets of raters. However, when the ratings of the
parents, and the teachers, on each of the four scales, were
compared to the standardized mean for these scales, using a
one sample t test for a known population mean and SD (i.e.
50 and 10, respectively; see Howell 1997, pp. 172–175),
these analyses revealed only a statistically reliable differ-
ence for the scores of cognitive ability for both sets of
raters. There were very few differences in the ratings given
to the children’s behaviors by the parents compared to the
teachers. In fact, if Bonferroni corrections are employed,
only the ratings of oppositional behavior given by the
parents and teachers proved to be statistically reliable using
independent groups t tests, with the teachers rating these
behaviors as worse than the parents.
The mean level of parenting stress for this sample as
measured by the QRS-F was 28.2 (±7.3; range 5–44). A
categorical approach to analyzing differences between
lower- and higher-stressed parents was undertaken as,
while it is acknowledged that this approach does have some
problems (e.g., see Altman and Royston 2006), there were
several reasons to adopt a relatively simple approach in this
instance. Firstly, there were too few participants to be
confident in the results of a multiple regression procedure.
Secondly, a regression approach would make theoretical
assumptions about the linear relationship between variables
such as parenting stress and ratings of child behaviors that
may not be substantiated; for example, it would be sensi-
tive to threshold or step-effects in this relationship. A
between groups categorical approach is theoretically neu-
tral with respect to this issue (see Osborne et al. 2008). To
this end, the sample was divided into lower- and higher-
stressed parent groups based on a mean split of the QRS
data. On this basis, for the purpose of subsequent analyses,
the parents were divided into lower-stressed (n = 24,
Table 2 Mean scores (SDs) from the four scales of the Conner’s
child rating scales, along with results of one sample t tests for each
score against the population mean, and independent t test for lower-
versus higher-stressed parents
Parents Lower- Higher- Independent t test
stressed stressed
Oppositional 55.5 (8.6) 58.2 (11.5) \1
Cognitive 75.4 (13.5)* 76.1 (10.2)* \1
Hyperactivity 63.6 (8.9) 67.1 (7.8) 1.53
ADHD 69.3 (8.7) 70.0 (7.4) \1
* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001
mean = 22.5 ± 5.2, range 5–28), and higher-stressed
(n = 28, mean = 33.2 ± 4.7, range 29–44) groups.
Comparison of the behavior ratings given to their chil-
dren by the lower- and higher-stressed parent groups is
shown in Table 2. Inspection of these data reveals that,
although all of the ratings by each group were higher than
the average, only the ratings of cognitive ability were
statistically higher than would be expected (using one-
sample t test with known population mean). Inspection of
the differences in the ratings given to the four behavior
areas by the two groups (i.e. lower- and higher-stressed
parents) reveals that the higher-stressed parents tended to
produce slightly higher ratings of behavior problems than
the lower-stressed group, but none of these differences
were statistically reliable.
Table 3 shows the Pearson correlations between the
ratings obtained from the parents and the teachers for the
whole sample, and also for lower-stressed parents and
teachers, and between the ratings of the higher-stressed
parents and the teachers. Examination of the correlations
between the informant ratings for the whole sample shows
that all of the correlations were very poor and not statis-
tically significant. Comparing the correlations obtained for
the lower and higher-stressed parents and the teachers
reveals that these were almost all low and not statistically
significant, with the exception of that for the ADHD scale,
where the correlation between teachers and parents’ was
much greater for the lower-stressed parents than for the
higher-stressed parents.

Table 1 Mean scores (SDs) from the four scales of the Conner’s
child rating scales, along with results of one sample t tests for each Table 3 Pearson correlation coefficients for the parent and teacher
score against the population mean, and independent t test for the ratings of the four child behavior scales (CRS)
parents versus teachers
Sample Low-stressed Higher-stressed
Parents Teachers Independent t test parents parents

Oppositional 56.9 (10.2) 67.8 (11.4) 5.09*** Oppositional -.003 -.047 .033
Cognitive 75.8 (11.7)* 77.7 (14.2)* \1 Cognitive .019 -.029 .071
Hyperactivity 65.5 (8.4) 66.5 (8.6) \1 Hyperactivity .212 .246 .234
ADHD 70.0 (8.0) 66.6 (8.3) 2.20 ADHD .250 .521** .054

* p \ .05; ** p \ .01; *** p \ .001 * p \ .01; ** p \ .001

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J Autism Dev Disord (2013) 43:471–477
Discussion
The current study aimed to assess the degree to which
teachers and parents ratings of child behavior problems
were similar for a sample of children with ASD. The results
indicated that, while the overall mean ratings for the
sample did not differ much between the teachers and the
parents, there was very poor correspondence between
the ratings for individual children. This dissimilarity of the
ratings between parents and teachers for a sample with
ASD confirms previous studies of this sample, which have
employed different rating scales to those used here (e.g.,
Kanne et al. 2009; Koning and Magill-Evans 2001). It also
adds to the literature that has consistently found that these
two sets of informant ratings give different results to one
another, and should not be regarded as substitutable (e.g.,
Stanger and Lewis 1993; Verhulst and Akkerhuis 1989).
The present study also attempted to address whether this
was likely to be due to differences in the environment in
which the parents and teachers assessed the children’s
behaviors. Previously, it has been suggested that this factor
is a key influence of the parent–teacher rating discrepancies
(see De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2005; Rettew et al. 2011).
In this study, attempts were made to control this factor by
having both the parents and teachers rate the behaviors in
the same environment. This tactic was made possible by
the emergence of home-based teaching programs for chil-
dren with ASD (see Lovaas 1987). However, despite the
ratings being made of the child’s behaviors that occurred in
the same environment, there was little consistency between
the two sets of raters. This result suggests that environ-
mental differences cannot be the sole contributor to such
informant discrepancies, and that other factors possibly
linked to the characteristics of the raters are important to
consider.
A further suggestion that has been made in this regard in
the literature, in general, is that ratings made by parents can
sometimes be impacted by depression or stress (De Los
Reyes and Kazdin 2006; Kolko and Kazdin 1993; Richters
1992; Youngstrom et al. 2000). In the context of ASD,
Fong (1991) has noted that higher-stressed mothers often
rate the same child behaviors as worse (more threatening)
than lower-stressed mothers. However, the evidence for
this suggestion was limited in the current study. While it
was the case that lower-stressed parents showed greater
correspondence with the teachers in terms of rating the
ADHD behaviors of the children than did the higher-
stressed parents, none of the other scales showed any dif-
ference in the ratings of the behaviors. It is currently
unclear why the ADHD-related behaviors should be sen-
sitive to levels of parental stress such that this, but not the
other scales, produces discrepant informant ratings. It may
be that there is something about the nature of the ADHD
475
behaviors (e.g., more hyperactivity, harder to be redirected,
etc.) that influences stressed parents. Stressed parents may
have fewer emotional or physical resources to handle these
behaviors, and their perception may be that these behav-
iors, in particular, are more prominent (even if they are not
actually more exacerbated) than to teachers.
However, overall, there was little evidence that, for this
ASD sample, parental stress was a factor in promoting
discrepancies between their and the teachers ratings of
child behaviors. This stands in contrast to previous findings
from other samples, in which this factor has been noted to
be important in promoting discrepancies between teacher
and parent ratings of behavioral and emotional problems
(e.g., De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2006; Kolko and Kazdin
1993; Richters 1992). It may be that the levels of stress
noted in parents of children with ASD are particularly high
relative to those seen in other populations (see Osborne and
Reed 2009), and this general high level of parenting stress
obscures the effect of stress on these ratings. Alternatively,
it may be that the types of behavior problems noted in
children with ASD are not those which parental stress or
depression systematically distorts perceptions about rela-
tive to teachers.
One possibility that should be mentioned, and that
requires further exploration, is that there are factors
impacting on the perceptions of the teachers that lead to
these ratings being different from those given by the par-
ents (whereas, it is often assumed that parent-factors, such
as their levels of stress, e.g., De Los Reyes and Kazdin
2006, are the critical variables in producing the discrep-
ancies). It must be remembered that teachers are observing
the children in relation to other children, whereas, the
parents may often be focusing on that child and the ASD
only. Even if siblings are involved, there experience is of
those children, not a wider range of children with ASD and
the behavior problems that go with it. This may mean that
the teachers are using a different basis on which to rate the
behaviors of the children. The fact that all of the children in
the study were undergoing a home-based ABA program
may also impact these results. For example, it may be that
the teachers in this study (i.e. teachers delivering ABA
interventions) may have quite different characteristics to
teachers employed in other studies. Moreover, as the
children were enrolled in a treatment program may mean
that the parents were rating their behaviors differently from
parents of children not in such intensive programs, and,
indeed, the children’s behavior may be different from other
children who are not in such programs. Although the fact
that the behaviors were in the normal range for most scales
of the CRS suggests this last point may not play too much
of a role.
There are, of course, a number of limitations on the
generality of the results obtained from this study that should
123
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be highlighted. Firstly, the sample was a specific sub-set of
children with ASD—those undergoing a home-based ABA
intervention program. This may introduce factors that are
not seen in other groups of children with ASD, as discussed
above (e.g., Johnson et al. 2009; Kalyva 2010; Koning and
Magill-Evans 2001). However, the reason for employing
this sample was to equate the environment in which the
children’s behavior was rated. Secondly, it may be that
different results would be seen with the use of other rating
instruments. The current tool (the CRS) is quite specific to
behaviors related to attentional-type problems, and a more
broadly-based tool may offer different results. Thirdly, the
sample size was moderate (in part due to the need to get
ratings from children undergoing ABA home programs
where the parent and teacher could complete the forms on
the same day). However, the sample size is in line with some
previous studies that have found effects (e.g., Kolko and
Kazdin 1993; Papageorgiou et al. 2008).
In summary, the current report noted discrepant ratings of
child behavior problems given by parents and teachers in a
sample with ASD. There have been few demonstrations of
this, and the finding adds to the needs for caution in inter-
preting the results from studies assessing child behavior
problems. However, the results also suggested that this
discrepancy cannot be attributed entirely to differences in
the assessment-environment, as this was the same for both
parents and teachers. Moreover, there was little evidence of
widespread impacts of parenting stress on these discrepant
ratings. It was suggested that, for this sample, as for all such
samples, further attention is needed in terms of the teacher
characteristics when explaining such results.
Acknowledgments We would like to acknowledge the kind par-
ticipation of the children in this research, and we thank them very
much for their time and involvement. Thanks are also due to the
parents of the children who kindly participated.
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