Highly resilient coping entails better perceived health, high social support and low morning cortisol levels in parents of children with autism spectrum disorder.

The negative consequences of caring for people with developmental disabilities have been widely described. However, the ability to bounce back from the stress derived from care situations has been less studied. Those caregivers who have shown this ability are considered as resilient. This study aims to evaluate the relationship between resilience and self-reported health and cortisol awakening response (CAR) in a sample of caregivers of people with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). It also aims to evaluate the role of social support as a mediator in the association between resilience and health. Caregivers with higher resilience show better perceived health, lower morning cortisol levels, and less area under the curve with respect to ground (AUCg). Social support was positively related to resilience and mediated the relationship between resilience and perceived health. This mediating effect was not found in the association between resilience and CAR. Resilience could be a protective factor that modulates the negative consequences of chronic stress in the care context. Social support could be an important variable mediating the effects of resilience on health outcomes in caregivers. All these results must be considered when implementing effective psychological programs for helping caregivers.

[Resilience and risk in children with learning disabilities]. / Resiliencia y riesgo en niños con dificultades de aprendizaje.

AIM: To stress the desirability of considering the resilience approach as a complement to the risk approach in the study and intervention of children with learning disabilities (LD). DEVELOPMENT: Most of the research carried out into LD has used the correlational methodology, which has given rise to chance inferences being made and to considering them as being a risk factor for development in their own right. Yet, the findings from more recent longitudinal studies make it necessary to reconsider the inevitability of negative results in the development of children with LD and to identify the processes and the factors underlying successful development, i.e. personal and social skills (self-efficiency, emotional coping, effective use of help, discrete view of difficulty, unconditional acceptance and support, and so on). CONCLUSIONS: The resilience approach is not an alternative that excludes the risk approach, but rather they complement each other and are both necessary in order to gain an understanding of LD and intervention. Optimising the development of individuals with LD is a task that can be made easier by assuming that resilience is a capacity that is present in all individuals and can also be improved.

Resiliencia y riesgo en niños con dificultades de aprendizaje / Resilence and risk in children with learning disabilities

Objetivo. Enfatizar la conveniencia de considerar el enfoque de resiliencia de forma complementaria al de riesgo en el estudio y la intervención de niños con dificultades de aprendizaje (DA). Desarrollo. La mayor parte de las investigaciones sobre DA ha utilizado la metodología correlacional, que ha llevado a realizar inferencias causales y a considerarlas en sí mismas como un factor de riesgo para el desarrollo. Sin embargo, los resultados de estudios más recientes, de corte longitudinal, obligan a reconsiderar la inevitabilidad de resultados negativos en el desarrollo de niños con DA y a identificar los procesos y los factores que están en la base de un desarrollo exitoso: habilidades personales y sociales (autoeficacia, afrontamiento emocional, uso efectivo de ayuda, visión discreta de la dificultad, aceptación y apoyo incondicional, etc.). Conclusiones. El enfoque de resiliencia no es una alternativa excluyente del de riesgo, sino que ambos son complementarios y necesarios para la comprensión de las DA y la intervención. Optimizar el desarrollo de individuos con DA es una tarea que puede facilitarse si se asume que la resiliencia es una capacidad presente en todo individuo y susceptible de mejora

Aim. To stress the desirability of considering the resilience approach as a complement to the risk approach in the study and intervention of children with learning disabilities (LD). Development. Most of the research carried out into LD has used the correlational methodology, which has given rise to chance inferences being made and to considering them as being a risk factor for development in their own right. Yet, the findings from more recent longitudinal studies make it necessary to reconsider the inevitability of negative results in the development of children with LD and to identify the processes and the factors underlying successful development, i.e. personal and social skills (self-efficiency, emotional coping, effective use of help, discrete view of difficulty, unconditional acceptance and support, and so on). Conclusions. The resilience approach is not an alternative that excludes the risk approach, but rather they complement each other and are both necessary in order to gain an understanding of LD and intervention. Optimising the development of individuals with LD is a task that can be made easier by assuming that resilience is a capacity that is present in all individuals and can also be improved