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Parents of autistic children experience more parenting stress and are at increased risk for poor mental and physical health compared with parents of neurotypical children; however, not all parents are distressed. The present study used a person-centered analytic approach to identify profiles of the parenting experience in a sample of 183 mothers and fathers of an autistic child (5-12 years old) and to examine associations between profile membership and child outcomes. Results indicated three profiles for mothers: "Adaptive" (41.1%; high authoritative parenting, lowest stress, and highest competence), "Average" (42.1%; sample average of all parenting indicators), and "Distressed" (16.8%; high stress, low competence, maladaptive parenting strategies). Fathers were classified into four profiles: "Adaptive" (33.3%), "Average" (37.7%), "Distressed"--"Permissive" (15.3%; high stress, low competence, permissive parenting strategies), and "Distressed"--"Authoritarian" (13.6%; some stress, lowest competence, authoritarian parenting strategies). The profiles differed on child internalizing and externalizing symptoms and autism symptom severity. Comparative analysis also revealed that children did better when at least one parent was included in the "Adaptive" group. Implications of these findings are discussed and include fostering empowering messages to parents as well as providing useful new insight in the context of family-focused interventions.

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