Automatic thoughts and cognitive flexibility as predictors of psychological resilience in parents: A comparison between parents with special needs children and parents with normally developing children

The aim of the study is to examine automatic thoughts and cognitive flexibility as predictors of psychological resilience in parents with children with special needs and parents with normally developing children, and to evaluate them according to some socio-demographic variables. The population of the research consists of 400 parents over the age of 18 residing in Turkey. In the research, online questionnaire collection method consisting of four parts was used as a data collection tool. In the first part, there is the "Personal Information Form" prepared by the researcher, the "Short Psychological Resilience Scale" in the second part, the "Automatic Thoughts Scale" in the third part, and the "Cognitive Flexibility Inventory" in the fourth part. SPSS package program was used in the analysis of the data. As a result of the findings, a negative relationship was found between automatic thoughts and psychological resilience. Parents with a normally developing child have a higher relationship score than parents with a child with special needs. The level of resilience of parents with normally developing children was found to be higher than the level of resilience of parents with children with special needs. It is seen that the psychological resilience, automatic thoughts and cognitive flexibility levels of the participants do not differ statistically significantly according to the status of being a mother or father, the number of children, the status of having or not having a child with special needs, educational status, marital status, income status and employment status The findings obtained from the research were discussed within the framework of the relevant literature, and some suggestions were presented to researchers and practitioners.