Expressed Emotion, Spontaneous Attributions and Psychological Distress in Mothers of Adolescents with and without Neurodevelopmental Disabilities

We examined the association between maternal criticism and spontaneous causal attributions in mothers of adolescents with and without neurodevelopmental disabilities. Mothers of typically developing adolescents tend to be more critical of their child because they attribute the latter’s negative behaviour to factors believed to be controllable by the teenager.