Arab Educational Information Network

The study aims to find out the effect of having a child with autism and Down syndrome on the quality of the marital relationship in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and to reveal the difference in the quality of the marital relationship between the parents of children with autism and the parents of children with Down syndrome in addition to determining the difference between the level of quality of the marital relationship between Parents of normal children and children with autism and Down syndrome. To achieve these goals, the researcher used the marital relationship quality scale prepared by Shaima Mustafa, which measures four dimensions, namely: (love and exchange of feelings, communication, trust, mutual support). The study was conducted on 261 subjects of mothers and fathers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The study found that having a Down syndrome slightly affects the quality of the marital relationship, while having a child with autism significantly affects the quality of the marital relationship. Also, there are no statistically significant differences between the average degrees of parents of normal children and parents of Down's children, in contrast, there are statistically significant differences between parents of normal children and parents of autistic children, and there are also statistically significant differences in the averages of parents of children with autism and parents of children with Down syndrome. (Published abstract)