Speaker
Presentation in English
SANJA ŠIMLEŠA
UNIVERSITY OF ZAGREB. CROATIA
Assoc. Prof. Sanja Šimleša, PhD, is employed as an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences. In addition to teaching at undergraduate and graduate programs, she is the course leader for three courses in the specialist study program Early Intervention in Educational Rehabilitation, two courses in the doctoral program Language, Speech, and Hearing Disorders, one course in the doctoral program Psychology, one course in the doctoral program Biomedicine and Health Sciences, one course in the doctoral program Neuroscience, and one course in the doctoral program Prevention Science and Disability Studies.
She has further specialized in the field of psychological assessment of children at the Yale University Child Study Center, the University of California Autism and Neurodevelopmental Clinic, the University of California Department of Psychiatry, and the Center on Human Development and Disability – Autism Center at the University of Washington (in 2011, 2012, and 2018).
She is the editor of the Croatian edition of the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2). She has also completed training for the Autism Diagnostic Interview–Revised (ADI-R), which, alongside ADOS-2, is considered the gold standard in autism diagnostics.
Prof. Šimleša has delivered approximately 50 presentations at national and international conferences, including five invited lectures. She has published 35 scientific papers
From 2017 to 2022, she served as the head of the Teaching and Clinical Center at the Faculty of Education and Rehabilitation Sciences.
She is the recipient of the Award for the Best-Rated Lecturer in the postgraduate specialist study “Early Intervention in Educational Rehabilitation”, as well as two other awards: the Best Young Scientist Award (2016) and the Award for the Promotion of Lifelong Learning (2015).
Inner Worlds of Parenthood: Understanding Stress and Personality Traits in Raising Children with Disabilities
Parenting a child with disabilities presents unique psychological challenges, often intensifying parental stress and influencing family dynamics. This symposium brings together four research presentations that delve into the inner experiences of parents raising children with diverse developmental and psychological conditions, highlighting factors contributing to stress, coping mechanisms, and personality traits within these families.
The first presentation explores parental stress in mothers of preschool children diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). Findings reveal that mothers of children with ASD experience significantly higher stress levels than parents of typically developing children or children with other developmental disorders.
The second presentation focuses on mothers of preschool children with hearing impairments, examining stress levels and coping strategies including perceptions of social and professional support. It emphasises the role of adaptive coping mechanisms and the impact of community and institutional support in alleviating parental burden.
The third presentation explores stress in mothers and fathers of newborns who were admitted to Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) after birth. The substantial proportion of parents were in clinically significant psychological distress. Parental stress was related to stressors associated to the NICU environment itself, stressors outside the hospital and parental younger age. Some differences between mothers and fathers in perceived stressors were found.
Finally, the fourth presentation investigates the family characteristics and personality traits of parents of children with Selective Mutism (SM). Results indicate that parents often share personality traits with their children, such as shyness and introversion, scoring highest on agreeableness and lowest on neuroticism. Environmental factors, like frequent changes of residence, emerged as potential stressors contributing to the persistence of SM.
Together, these presentations provide valuable insights into the complex interplay of stress, personality, and environmental factors in parenting children with disabilities, emphasizing the need for holistic, family-centered support systems to promote parental well-being and healthier family dynamics.
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