This study examines the potential impact of family conflict and cohesion, and 
peer support/bullying on children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). While 
such impacts have been established for a range of non-ASD childhood disorders, 
these findings may not generalize to children with ASD because of unique 
problems in perspective-taking, understanding others' emotion, cognitive 
rigidity, and social reasoning. A structural model-building approach was used to 
test the extent to which family and peer variables directly or indirectly 
affected ASD via child anxiety/depression. The sample (N = 322) consisted of 
parents of children with ASD referred to two specialist clinics. The sample 
contained parents of children with Autistic Disorder (n = 76), Asperger Disorder 
(n = 188), Pervasive Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (n = 21), and children 
with a non-ASD or no diagnosis (n = 37). Parents completed questionnaires 
on-line via a secure website. The key findings were that anxiety/depression and 
ASD symptomatology were significantly related, and family conflict was more 
predictive of ASD symptomatology than positive family/peer influences. The 
results point to the utility of expanding interventions to include conflict 
management for couples, even when conflict and family distress is low. Further 
research is needed on the potentially different meanings of family cohesion and 
conflict for children with ASD relative to children without ASD.