Parent experiences of school distress or school refusal in their autistic child.

This article focuses on school refusal behaviours in autistic children and parents' experiences supporting them, using qualitative data from interviews with 15 Australian parents. School refusal, defined as emotionally based school non-attendance despite parental efforts to encourage attendance, encompasses a range of behaviours occurring before, during, and outside school hours, including full attendance with distress, partial attendance, and extended absences. Parents identified diverse school refusal behaviours aligning with Kearney's Continuum of School Refusal Behaviour in Youth, highlighting that many signs occur even when children attend school, which may lead to underreporting in attendance data. The study also reveals significant impacts on family systems, including parental stress, employment challenges, and the importance of effective home-school communication and staff understanding. Limitations include the Australian-only sample and reliance on parent perspectives, with recommendations for future research to include autistic individuals' views and school staff experiences.