Parental reflective functioning: A study of siblings in families with autistic versus typically developing children

Parental Reflective Functioning (PRF) refers to parents' ability to understand and respond to their child’s mental states. Prior research found that parents show heightened PRF toward their autistic children compared to their typically developing (TD) siblings. However, little is known about how such patterns vary across families with and without an autistic child. This study aimed to replicate previous findings and examine how families with and without autistic children differ in PRF. Thirty parents with autistic and TD child, and 30 parents with only TD children completed for each of their children the Parental Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (PRFQ) and the Five-Minute Speech Sample (FMSS-RF) resulting in 120 individual PRF assessments. Data were analyzed using one-way ANOVAs and χ² tests to compare PRF across siblings and family types. Results showed significantly higher PRF for autistic children compared to their TD siblings. This pattern emerged across both positive (e.g., interest and curiosity) and negative (e.g., pre-mentalizing modes, which capture distorted or absent mentalization) dimensions, suggesting a complex and potentially ambivalent parental stance. When comparing between families, those including an autistic child showed similarly elevated levels of pre-mentalizing towards both children, whereas families of only TD children exhibited greater differentiation in pre-mentalizing across siblings — indicating a distinct within-family pattern in autism contexts. These findings underscore the unique demands on parents raising autistic children and highlight a potential disparity in PRF that may impact TD siblings. The study calls for further research and family support strategies.